


Walk With Me (I Think We'll Find A Way)

by Elizabeethan



Series: Walk With Me Series [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Season 3, Smut, at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:22:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elizabeethan/pseuds/Elizabeethan
Summary: Killian Jones travels across realms to find Emma and Henry in New York after receiving an anonymous message about a new curse. When he finally tracks her down, he makes a bold move and greets her at her front door, but before he can even attempt to convince her to come back to Storybrooke with him, he’s met with a surprise that will change his life.Season 3B canon divergent AU
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Prince Charming | David Nolan/Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard
Series: Walk With Me Series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009527
Comments: 150
Kudos: 246





	1. Prologue

New York City is the worst place Killian Jones has ever  been . It smells worse than some of the worst brothels he’s visited. It’s louder than  some of the battles he’s fought in. The people here share a common rudeness that could rival that of the Evil Queen. But if Emma Swan found herself if New York City somehow, then that’s where Killian must  go.

He isn’t even sure how he ended up finding her; he thought she and Henry were heading to Boston when the curse struck , but when he searched for her there, he came up with nothing.  Eventually, h e  ran out of money and resources, remembered where Neal’s apartment was in New York, and  was suddenly faced with the beautiful blonde one day  walking down the street.  It was kismet.  He couldn’t have planned it better himself, although it probably would have been better if he hadn’t had to stalk her until she made her way home. He told himself that he needed to do this, though, for the good of her family, no matter how disturbed he felt  following her through crowded streets until she arrived at her building. He felt worse the next morning, when he returned to the apartment and read through the names of every single resident on the call box until he found her —  _ E. Swan _ .  Thank the gods. 

So he re he stands,  outside of her door trying to force himself to knock. His face feels so hot that he may break out in hives. His heart is slamming against his ribs with such force that they may crack again . He hasn’t seen Emma in two years— never thought he would see her again when she left him.  He knows she won’t recognize him, but a part of him wonders if a part of her will. When he knocks, his palms are so sweaty that he can’t even rub them along his pants because they're catching against the leather . His thoughts are racing. Should he have found a new outfit before doing this ? His pirate garb  could scare her, although it may also assist in her recognizing him. 

“Swan , at last ,” he says when she answers the door, looking as  stunning as ever in her pajamas and her hair slightly messy.  When her eyes meet his, they’re bright and shining and he sees her brows pinch together .  He thinks his theory, that  a part of her subconscious recognizes him, is accurate, until he starts  stepping towards her  and she backs up protectively. 

“Woah, do I know you?” She asks, closing the door over in front of herself. 

“Swan,  I need your help, somethings happened.  Something terrible. Your family is in trouble .”

“My family’s right here, who are you?”

Bloody hell, he is a fool. “An old friend . I know you  can’t remember me, but I can—”  he says idiotically as he steps forward, but he stops short before he can reach for her glowing face. 

“Momma !” a  small  voice  squawks , and he hears the thumps of tiny steps running  clumsily  towards the door. 

Emma turns, closing the door some more. “ Go back with Henry, baby. This man was just leaving,” she says pointedly, but it’s too late. The child has made herself visible to Killian, and he thinks he may be sick in Emma Swan’s hallway. 

Because  when he looks down and his eyes meet hers, it’s as if he’s looking into a mirror.  Her dirty blonde hair bounces as Emma picks her up , and her wide blue eyes are staring into his. Those are his eyes. 

Before he can even utter a word out to Emma, because he can’t seem to get his voice to work, she’s slamming the door in his face. 

~~~~

He sits quietly on the couch in Neal’s apartment, unable to move or speak or think. He finally found Emma, and it went horribly. He wasn’t expecting much else; he knew she wouldn’t recognize him. But he wasn’t expecting the pain in his heart after finally seeing her after two years. After assuming he would never see her again.

He can’t get his mind off of those huge blue eyes . 


	2. Chapter 1

Once she’s safely sitting at dinner, Emma feels slightly calm for the first time all day. She can’t stop thinking about Corrine, hoping that she’s safe with Mrs. Brown and that that mysterious man with her eyes doesn’t come back. She already met with security to ensure that someone checks that the gate lock is working properly, but she still feels a sense of mom-guilt leaving Henry and Corrine alone tonight, despite the fact that Walsh has had this dinner planned all week. 

She thought he was going to kiss her, and what’s worse is that she thinks she may have let him. It was as if they’ve kissed before; as if he knows her and she knows him. The second she saw his stunning blue eyes that perfectly matched Corrine’s, she thought her life was about to change— she thinks it has. There is no other explanation for those damn eyes. Corrine doesn’t have a father, and that’s okay. Emma does have one either, nor does Henry. (Perhaps that isn’t the best topic for family bonding, but Emma usually puts that thought out of her head.) But she has his eyes. 

She has Emma’s nose and round cheeks, but the shape of her eyes never resembled her mother’s and her ears have always had a tiny bit of a point to them. She has his ears. 

Emma didn’t think she knew who impregnated her two years ago. She couldn’t say where or when exactly it happened, but she’s never even thought to question Corrine’s paternity. Perhaps it was a bit insane for her to suddenly fall pregnant with no logical explanation as to how, but she never second-guessed it, only accepted it and loved the baby fiercely from the start. 

But she knows the man who showed up at her doorstep has to be Corrine’s father. He has her eyes. She recognizes him, even though she keeps trying to tell herself that doesn’t. And his showing up has interrupted her ability to rationalize her paradoxical pregnancy in her own head. Is he coming for custody? 

Now that she’s faced with a potential explanation for the miraculous birth of her child, she can’t get it out of her head. What the hell has she been thinking all this time? Who does she think she is, the Virgin Mary? Immaculate conception isn’t really a thing, Emma. 

She thinks he may be after her for custodial rights, and while a part of her is pissed at him for it, another part of her trusts that he has Corrine’s best interests in mind. She thinks he might even be what’s in Corrine’s best interest. She doesn’t know why she trusts him so innately, but she’s going to fight it tooth and nail. 

In an effort to get past her racing thoughts, she tries to listen to Walsh talk about his shift and all of the interesting things that can happen at a furniture store. He talks of the elderly couple searching for a new bed and the entirely too-detailed explanation for what happened to their last one. He talks about some of the new pieces they got in, and the chair that Emma might like for Henry’s room. Then, as if she doesn’t have enough to worry about, he says something out of nowhere that rips the sense of calm straight from her grasp: “we should move in together.”

She nearly chokes on her Cabernet, feeling it go far too close to the back of her throat and making her nose sting and her eyes water. “ _What_?” she asks, and her tone was a bit too harsh. 

“Come on, think about it. We’ve been together for nearly a year, don’t you think it’s about time?” 

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Walsh. I don’t… I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

He nods at her, smiling softly and taking her hand from across the table. “I know this is a lot. I think we’re ready for this, but I have to respect that you aren’t sure.”

“It’s just… things are weird right now.” She inhales deeply and somehow not deeply enough.

“Just… think about it. I’m gonna go to the restroom and maybe you can think about what’s holding you back? We can talk it through.”

She nods in response, taking her hand away and placing them on her lap as she draws her brows in in thought. She hates when he tries to talk things through with her. He stands and leaves the table, and she can hardly even think. What she thought was going to be a nice, simple dinner has turned into so much more. Too much more. This is all too much for her to deal with in one lifetime, never mind one day. 

Before she can even think about how unusually quick he was in the restroom, she sees a figure sitting across from her in her peripheral and glances up, but instead of seeing Walsh, she sees him. 

“You!”

“I can explain.”

“You are a stalker!”

“Don’t scream, just hear me out. I don’t do this often, so treasure it, love. I’ve come to apologize.” 

She gives him the most threatening look she can muster and says, “for trying to kiss me?”

“I was trying to jog your memory.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s time for you to go.”

“Emma, your parents are in grave danger.” 

“You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she scoffs. Why is she even entertaining him now? How did he find her again? 

“Because you think you’re an orphan? Because that’s haunted you your whole life? I’m here to tell you that everything you believe is wrong.”

“You don’t know me,” she says defensively. 

“Lass, I know you better than you know yourself.” Why does that sound like the truth? He takes out a piece of paper and when she looks down at it, she notices that he wears a glove on only one hand. He shows her an address, and tells her that everything she needs to know, she’ll find there. 

He tells her she’ll find out who her parents are. 

He tells her he prefers to be called a dashing rapscallion or a scoundrel and she almost smiles, because he’s charming, dammit, and for some reason, it reminds her of Corrine. 

He tells her to try using her superpower, and she’s getting really freaked out, so she makes up some bullshit about him believing his own lies. He tells that he knows her and that she knows something is off. 

He’s right. 

He tells her to trust her gut, and she wants to listen. He tells her again to go to the address he’s given her. He tells her to do it for her family. And just as mysteriously as he’d arrived at her table, he’s gone. 

Walsh sits down a moment later, and she can barely speak to him. “I know what’s holding you back,” he says somberly, and she looks up to give him an impatient and expectant cock of her eyebrows. “It’s the baby’s father, isn’t it?”

He’s right, too. 

~~~~

In two days, her life has been turned completely upside down. When she got the photos developed from Henry’s camera, the one that she found in his father’s apartment, she nearly vomited. Seeing Henry and her in some town she’s never heard of surrounded by strange people she’s never seen before makes her feel delusional. 

She almost regrets sending the man, Killian, to jail, claiming that he stalked her. When he comes out of the precinct complaining about being force fed something called bologna, she feels a sense of peace settle over her. Corrine has a funny sense of humor. She’s always babbling about one thing or another, and Emma can’t understand what she’s saying most of the time, although her words are getting clearer each day. When she babbles, although it’s not in English, it’s as if she’s telling Emma a joke each time she opens her mouth, and she almost sees the hint of a smirk on her face. Like she’s using her sense of humor to communicate. It reminds her of this Killian. He wears the same smirk and tells jokes in the same tone. 

She brushes past this quickly, taking out the photos and bombarding him with questions to which she’s sure he shouldn’t have the answers. At first, she thought he was after Corrine, but the more she talks to him, the more he insists that her family needs her. “If you think these are forgeries, then why’d you spring me from the brig?” he asks, and who does he think he is, asking her logical questions? “Deep down, you know something’s wrong. Deep down, you know I’m right.” He right again.

“How could I forget all of this?” 

“I promise you there’s an explanation.” She wishes his promise doesn’t mean so much to her. 

“Not one that makes sense.” It can’t make sense. If it does, it threatens the life that she’s been building for herself since she got out of jail almost 14 years ago. 

“If you drink this, it will.”

She can’t believe that she’s considering this. She’s considering taking a shot of literal potion from a man she doesn’t know. She doesn’t think she can take the risk of giving up her perfect life in New York with Henry and Corrine, but he tells her that it’s all based on lies she believes him. 

“It’s real. And it’s pretty good. I have Henry and Corrine, a job, a guy that I love…”

His confidence falters and she knows her mistake. He never knew her name, and now her suspicions of her daughter’s paternity are gaining confirmation based on the pained look on his face. Like it just became real to him. When he says, “perhaps there’s a man that you love in the life that you’ve lost,” she wonders if he’s referring to himself. How could she love a man she doesn’t even remember? A man who she keeps telling herself she doesn’t recognize, save for the eyes and ears he’s given to his daughter?

She believes him. She doesn’t know why she trusts this weirdly dressed man enough to take the vial from him and drink up, but when she tips it over her lips and lets the strange liquid trickle down her throat, and she knows she made the right choice. 

Visions pass over her like a dream and suddenly everything does make sense, just like he said it would. 

She’s the savior. There was a curse. None of this is real. 

~~~~

“There wasn’t anything for me in the Enchanted Forest. Why would I stay?”

It’s becoming too much for Emma. One minute she was living happily with her children, the next she was drinking a potion and remembering the life that shouldn’t make as much sense as it does. She really needs this tumbler of rum, she thinks, as she clinks her glass with his. 

“You came all the way back here to save my family?”

“I came back to save you.” He sits back in his seat, exposing more of his chest hair outlined by his tight leather shirt and decorated by the necklace she didn’t know she remembered. 

Falling back into their banter was easy. Talking to him was always easy. As much as she’s always wanted to reject his advances and insistences that they’re alike, she has to admit that they do have a lot in common, even more so now. 

She isn’t sure how to broach the elephant in the room with him. They shared one night together, unplanned and unprotected, and she immediately fell head over heels in love with the consequence of that decision. But how does she go about talking about their daughter with him? How does she ask him if his intentions with her are pure, even though she somehow trusts that they are? 

If she wasn’t cursed for the last two years, she’s sure she would have realized how illogical everything was. She quite literally didn’t know how she became pregnant, but she never once questioned it. Her non-cursed self may have suspected an attack, but over the last two years, she didn’t even realize that her child’s conception made no sense. 

“Swan, I have to ask…” he starts as if he’s reading her thoughts, then glances back at his glass and takes a sip. “The child…”

She sighs, taking a matching sip and sitting back in her seat.

“I never even second-guessed how it happened. One day I was just… pregnant. And I never thought it was strange or anything. I had no memory of… you know, on the ship… and I guess Regina’s curse must have just, I don’t know, made it make sense in my head.”

“She really did a number on you.” He looks dejected.

“I guess so.”

“So she’s…” he stops himself from continuing. He wants so badly to confirm that she’s his, she can see it in his eyes, but it’s as if he can’t get the words to come out.

“I mean, look at her,” she laughs, shaking her head. “I know you only saw her for a second, but…” she sighs, taking another sip. “She has your eyes.”

“Aye,” he says. “It was rather like looking into a mirror.” His voice is soft and somber. “Where is she tonight, if I may ask?” 

Does he want to meet her? “With the babysitter, Mrs. Brown— she’s great. She lives down the hall. She’s so sweet,” she smiles. “She made this little set-up for her with her son’s old crib for when I’m out late on a case.”

He smiles too, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and his eyes don’t meet hers as they look into the glass. “It would seem that you’ve had support over the years, then.”

“Yeah, definitely.” She sits up then, taking one final sip and forcing him to make eye contact with her when she leans towards him. “I don’t know if this is a good idea right now, but… do you want—” 

Her doorbell buzzes. 

“Who’s that?”

She sighs. “Walsh. Henry invited him.”

He moves to stand, pushing his chair out and leaning forward. “I can get rid of him.”

“No! My memories may not be real, but his are. And so were the 10 months we spent together.”

She cares about Walsh, she really does. She thought that she loved him, before all this. But when she told Henry that she wasn’t sure about him moving in, he encouraged her to take the next step, arranged a sleepover with a friend and a sitter for Corrine, and invited Walsh over using her phone. 

He’s too smart for his own good. And for hers. 

When they get on the roof, things seem normal enough. He appears to deal with the breakup and with her leaving with grace and understanding at first, until she mentions someone from her past showing up. 

“Henry’s father? Corrine’s?”

“It’s not—” she starts, but he interrupts. 

“I knew this would happen. I knew that’s what was holding you back. You can’t get past the fact that you don’t know who her father is, can you?” His voice is sharp and vapid, unlike the Walsh she thought she knew.

“Walsh—”

“Did he show up? He’s here? Is that why you don’t want me in your apartment?” He sighs and shakes his head. “Emma, it’s okay. We can move past this, you and me, just don’t go back to him. He’s scum. He hasn’t been in her life for the last 15 months, what difference would it make now?” 

“I have to do this, Walsh. I have to go.”

“So you’re trading me in for a guy who knocked you up and abandoned you?”

That stung a bit, especially since she now knows the truth. She tries so hard to reason with him, to give this man with whom she spent the last 10 months the explanation he deserves. But the more she tries, the more defensive he becomes, and her heart turns to stone and falls into her stomach the moment he says, “I wish you hadn’t drank that potion,” with a cock to his head and a condescending smile. 

Suddenly a chair is thrown and he’s charging at her, so she dodges him and grabs for a pipe left on the AC unit, smashing him over the head with it. He falls hard, and before she can even think about checking on him, he disappears in a cloud of smoke. 

~~~~

“Who would’ve done this?” she asks, her voice shaking.

“Someone powerful enough to reach into this world,” he says, leading her down the stairs and back towards her apartment, his hand never leaving the small of her back.

“We were never safe. The whole time I’ve been here… I’ve been putting my kids in danger.”

“Swan, you didn’t know. Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

When she reaches the door she pauses. “I need to get Corrine back here. I can’t— I can’t trust her with anyone else right now.”

“Aye,” he says softly. “Well, I’ll leave you to that. I understand if you’d rather I not be here when she is,” he says, unable to meet her eyes with his.

He wants to meet her. He wants to meet the child whose eyes are an exact copy of his own. Who’s hair is somehow a cross between his jet black and her golden blonde. The child who shares his sarcastic sense of humor and cocky smirk at such a young age. 

“Come back tomorrow,” she tells him softly, ringing her hands together in an attempt to calm her nerves and fighting the urge to lean in to him and rest her head on his collarbone. “We’ll leave for Storybrooke in the morning. Come here first, and then you can ride up with us. Get to know her a bit.”

“You’re sure?” His face brightens and she sees the hint of a smile on his lips. 

“Yeah, you deserve to know your… your daughter. Our daughter.” She can barely get the words out. She chokes over them as they leave her throat. 

Yesterday she didn’t question how she could have fallen pregnant without any knowledge or memory of the consequential event. Now, she’s come to learn that her daughter’s father is Captain Hook, she became pregnant with her on the Jolly Roger while traveling home from Neverland, and she’s on her way to meet her parents, Snow White and Prince Charming. 

And somehow, despite everything, that makes more sense than anything else has over the last two years. 

“Thank you, Emma, I’d... I’d like that.”

“Good.” His arm adopts a protective position around her body and his hand presses into the door at the same level as her head. 

They’re so close together that she can smell the rum on his breath that matches hers. “Are you sure you’ll be alright here tonight?” he whispers, his warm chest rising with his heaving breath so that it’s nearly touching hers. 

“No, but I have a gun. And… I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t want Henry to see you here tomorrow morning.” She isn’t sure if she’s implying that she wants him to stay or not, but she knows he won’t push her in either direction. 

“Too right, love.”

“Come back in the morning,” she whispers.

“That was my plan.”

She can’t wait any longer. She’s pressing up on her toes before she can allow her brain to catch up with her body and thrusting her fingers into his thick dark hair, pulling his face to hers. His lips are as soft as he remembers them being from when they last found themselves in this position, albeit a bit chapped. She’s noticed that he has a habit of licking his lips. 

When his tongue snakes out against her own, she nearly loses herself. She feels him removing his hand from the solid door and twisting his fingers into her hair, pulling her face closer still to his own and shifting the angle so that their tongues can dance together. It’s everything she didn’t remember needing, and she knows in this moment that if there wasn’t a curse two years ago, they would have taken more opportunities to be together. 

She feels the familiar burn in her core heating up until she’s white hot when he steps closer to her and presses his body against her own. His excitement is evident as it presses to the base of her stomach, and she gasps into his mouth and yearns for the feeling of him tucked tightly inside her again. Memories from that night flood her and she finds it harder and harder to breathe. 

The more he kisses her, the more likely she is to let him back inside, so she breaks apart from him and gasps out a panting moan when he nips at her lip once more and pulls away. 

“Sorry love, I may have gotten carried away.” The confident Captain Hook is gone and she’s met with Killian Jones. 

Still breathless, she whispers, “come back tomorrow,” and opens the door, entering her apartment swiftly and pressing it closed behind her. 

~~~~

Corrine has too much energy this morning. The ride to Storybrooke is going to take hours, and she can’t sit still in her high chair for more than a minute without bouncing and kicking and banging on the tray. 

“Here, Corrine,” Henry says, picking up a piece of egg off her tray and trying to pop it into her mouth. 

“No!” She shouts, then giggles when she throws a piece of egg and it lands in his hair, and says, “uh oh!” 

“I think that’s my cue to leave.” Henry moves to stand from the table, pushing his chair in and carrying his plate to the sink. “I’m running late for school already.”

“No school today,” Emma says, and he stops short in his place. “I, uh, I have a new case. In Maine. I thought I might take you guys along with me.” She steps over to Corrine with a damp cloth and sees red in her eyes before she even starts to wipe her face. “No throwing food at your brother, baby,” she tells her as she squirms and grunts. 

“That’s not like you, what’s going on?”

“Nothing, I just thought it would be nice for you to get away for a while. I didn’t want to leave you two here while I went.”

The knock on the door makes Corrine jump in excitement and try to wiggle out of her seat, so Emma makes sure her straps are secured before making her way to the entrance and swinging the door open. 

Hook’s standing against the wall across from her looking… well, devilishly handsome, before he hoists himself off of it and walks straight past her into her apartment with a cocky grin. “You ready, Swan?” he asks as he confidently broaches the door, swagger intact, a completely different man from the one she left here last night. 

Corrine starts shouting, reaching her arms out and making grabbing motions with her hands. “Momma!” she screams. 

She smiles over at her daughter, then meets Henry’s confused face and says, “Henry, this is Killian. He, I’m, uh, helping him with his case.”

She walks to Corrine, unstrapping her and pulling her from the high chair before kissing her cheek.

“Did you skip bail?”

“Oh, he’s still a little spitfire,” Hook says, and Emma would smack him if she wasn’t holding a child. 

“Still?”

Corrine won’t stop wiggling, trying hard to get out of Emma’s arms. “He’s not a perp, he’s a client.” Corrine shouts incoherent nonsense into Emma’s ear. “Okay, okay,” she says as she places her on the floor, and she’s suddenly booking it towards Hook and reaching up for him. 

“Oh,” he says, and she can see his confident swagger melting away instantly as Corrine’s eyes meet his. Emma’s frozen. “Hello.”

“Hi,” she says, ready to show off two of the five words she knows by heart. “Up?”

He breaks his gaze from hers and meets Emma’s eyes. She’s never seen him look so vulnerable. 

“Why are you dressed like that?” Henry asks, and his trance is broken.

“Why are _you_ dressed like _that?_!”

“Alright, alright,” Emma says exasperatedly, picking up Corrine from behind and nesting her on her left hip. “Just make yourself useful, Killian, and get our bags. Henry, give him a… a hand.”

As they walk down the stairs, Hook and Henry behind Emma, Corrine laughs hysterically in her arms, wiggling around and dancing as if she’s happier than she’s ever been. 

When Emma turns around at the bottom of the stairs, she catches Hook pulling a face at the baby and she laughs hysterically again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is where we’ll really see the story picking up! Who do you think cast the curse?? Thoughts on Walsh?? Thoughts on Emma and Killian?  
> Thank you for reading!! Don’t forget to follow me on tumblr for endless shitposting and the occasional sneak peak @elizabeethan


	3. Chapter 2

Corrine loves music. Emma plays something she calls a  _ boyband _ over something else that she calls a  _ radio _ , and Corrine is kicking against the back of her seat so hard that he thinks she might dislodge herself from the safety contraption that Emma put her in. There are a lot of things in this world that he needs to get used to. One of them is the fact that Corrine sits in the car facing backwards.

“Her favorite band is One Direction,” she tells him as she operates the vehicle expertly. This statement means nothing to him, but he nods and smiles at her anyway as he hears the babe shouting and kicking from the back seat. 

“I see, love. She seems to be enjoying herself.”

“She  _ loves  _ this album. I’m more partial to  _ Made In The AM  _ myself, but I suffer for her.” He nods again. He’s sure she knows that he’s completely clueless, but she continues. “She’s gonna dance so hard that she passes out in the next 20 minutes. I’d put money on it.”

“I never did peg you as the gambling type, Swan,” he says in a tone that could make her uncomfortable, though and Emma smirks over at him. 

“Hawwy!” Corrine screams, and Henry turns to her and gently brushes a curl from her face. 

“He’s playing now, Corrine. Harry’s her favorite.”

He has no idea what that means. He nods.

“She calls me Harry too. She still can’t say Henry.”

Time passes slowly as the car blazes down the road too quickly. He’s thankful for the handlebar above his head being oriented on his right side, because he can grasp it with white knuckles without risking showing off his blunted arm to the children. He trusts Emma, he does, but it would seem that everyone else operating these  _ cars _ has a death wish. 

They pull off of the road after several hours and Emma tells him that they need burgers and Corrine needs to run around. She had slept for a while, but she’s starting to get restless again, and it would seem that her Direction isn’t doing much anymore. 

“Can you watch her while she runs around out here? Me and Henry can go grab the food?” She can likely tell by the stunned look on his face that he wasn’t expecting her to trust him alone with the child so soon after meeting her, as she places a hand on his bicep and squeezes lightly, giving him a soft and encouraging smile. “She doesn’t need much, just make sure she stays over here in the grass.”

“Aye, I can do that, love.” His confidence over the last few days has been shot to the ground completely. Finding out that he has fathered a child has impacted him in ways that he never thought possible, and he hasn’t had much time to process it. He and Emma haven’t talked about it much, as they haven’t had a moment alone during which the topic has come up, aside from her confirmation of the child’s paternity last night. 

He wants to be in his daughter’s life. He knew he wanted to be with Emma when he came back, but he assumed that she wouldn’t want him. Or that it would take a great amount of courting to get her to come around. He knows her— he knows that, despite the fact that they were together once before the curse, she would have fought tooth and nail against any feelings that she may have for him. 

But now… now things are different. They have a child. She looks so much like both of them. 

He thinks he must love her. He’s barely had the chance to get to know her, but he  _ must _ love her. There’s no other word for the feeling that washes over him each time she smiles at him. Fatherhood is a very strange thing. 

She flings herself into Emma’s arms once she’s unstrapped, bouncing against her hip and grinning towards Killian as if she can’t wait to spend time with him. His heart swells when Emma finally hands her to him, a slight struggle with his stiff prosthetic, but at least he doesn’t have to worry about jabbing the babe with his hook. 

Corrine practically melts into him for a moment once he finally gets her settled in his arms, and then she’s wiggling and bouncing again and he laughs. “Alright lass?” He says, and she smiles back at him. 

“Up!”

“Yes, you’re finally up, baby,” Emma says, rubbing Corrine’s back and smiling at him. “Come on, kid,” she says towards Henry, and they make their way into the building. 

Killian walks with Corrine over to the small field of grass, and it’s as if some kind of instinct has taken over his body and he’s bouncing and tickling her, and she laughs so hard that almost no sound comes out. Once they’ve reached the grass, he squats to put her down gently and watches as she bolts away from him more quickly than he was expecting. He doesn’t know much of anything about child development, but he thinks his daughter must be smarter than other children her age based on the speed at which she’s running on her chubby little legs. 

He feels prideful. He loves her. 

She runs back to him holding a small rock in one hand and a white flower in another, so he squats back down to her level and smiles. “That’s a daisy,” he tells her, and she looks up at him with big blue eyes and grins. 

“See!”

“Daisy.”

“Up!”

“You want to be picked up?” he asks, and should he be working on his baby-talk?

She repeats her demand with stretched arms, so he extends his own towards her and hoists her up, supporting her bottom with his left arm and propping her against his hip. “Did you have a nice runaround?” 

“See,” she says, holding out the wild daisy once more. 

“Daisy. It’s beautiful. You should put it in your hair.” He walks her over to the picnic table just across the way and takes a seat. He tries to seat her next to him, but she’s quite agile and she climbs up onto his lap. “This is comfortable, love?”

She says nothing, holding her flower in one chubby fist while investigating the rock in the other. 

Emma and Henry return after not much time, both wearing strangely uncomfortable looks on their faces. He tries to brush away the feelings of insecurity that rest over him, but the look that settles on Henry’s face when he glances briefly in Killian’s direction makes his stomach turn.

“Here,” Emma says, handing him a wad of paper and some napkins. “Road trip food,” she explains. 

He unravels the paper and is met with what must be the burger she and Henry were talking about. He thinks he remembers seeing them served at Granny’s before the curse struck and does as Henry does, taking a large bite off the side while leaning away from Corrine before it can drip on her. She starts to reach for the burger and he tries to keep it away, so Emma opens up a plastic pouch and holds it out to her, asking, “apple sauce?” before handing it to her. 

“How much longer before we get there?” Henry asks with his mouth full. 

“Another three hours.”

“Can we put on something else then?”

~~~~

When they finally arrive in Storybrooke, the sun has set. There’s an almost eerie feeling of density in the air, despite the fall weather, and Killian wants to get inside more than anything. He steps out of the car and opens Emma’s door for her, holding out a hand that she doesn’t take, and then clicks his hook into place. 

“How the hell are you gonna explain that?”

He sighs. “Perhaps you're right, love,” he says, removing the hook and placing his prosthetic back on. 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to sound judgy, just... Henry doesn’t know who you are.” 

“It’s alright, I agree. What's your plan?”

“I’m gonna go try and talk to my parents. Last time there was a curse, they didn’t remember anything, so it might take a while. Can you wait with them?”

“Aye.”

“Don't wake them up, or scare them— just, let them sleep.”

She isn’t gone for quite as long as he expected. He sits in the car quietly with the children for about twenty minutes, waiting with the sounds of their heavy breathing, before he hears Corrine start to fuss and wiggle in her seat. Rather than let her sit in discomfort, he opens his own door and makes his way to hers before undoing the straps as he’d seen Emma do and holding out an arm for her. It's difficult to lift her from the seat with one hand, but she goes to him easily and lets him hold her head against his chest and rock her back and forth in the darkness of the sidewalk. 

It would appear that Corrine loves to move. She's constantly wiggling and dancing, and he’d even seen her moving about in her sleep while the car was moving. He doesn’t think she’s asleep now, based on the fact that she’s still sucking on the thumb that she stuck in her mouth, but he continues to rock his body back and forth, humming softly to her. 

Emma’s back in no time, and she’s brought David with her. The last time they spoke was amicable, but Killian can’t help but feel nervous seeing him now, especially with very solid evidence that he's been with his daughter. 

“Hook,” David says, and he supposes that’s proof enough that he remembers something from before the curse. 

“Evening David.” Killian tries to be polite so as not to fuel any fires between himself and Emma’s father, but he isn't sure how long their civility will last once David puts the pieces together, unless Emma’s already told him. 

“And this must be Corrine.” His voice is short and clipped, but he smiles when he sees the lass in Killian’s arms.

Killian inhales deeply and says, “aye.”

David hums thoughtfully, taking a look at her and humming until Killian thinks he sees the smallest smile cross his face. “She’s beautiful,” he says softly. 

“Is she asleep?” Emma appears to be ignoring her father’s assessment. 

“No. She fussed for a bit but she’s calmed down now. I thought she may have needed to move about.” She smiles at him and, while he assumed she would take the baby from him, she simply rubs her back and moves over to Henry’s side of the car, opening it up and waking him. 

“Henry, this is my friend David. We're going to go up to his apartment and have a late dinner with him and his wife.” 

Henry groggily looks over to David and narrows his eyes, then turns back to Emma. “How many random men do you know, mom?”

“Henry...” she starts. 

“Do you like spaghetti, Henry?” He glances towards David and nods again. “My wife made spaghetti from scratch. She's a great cook, do you want to try some?” 

Henry rolls his eyes, and Killian is brought back immediately to a time when a young boy, about Henry’s age, spent time on his ship and rolled his eyes in the same way. 

“I talked to him at the rest stop,” Emma says to Killian as they start to walk towards David’s building. “That’s why he’s upset. He guessed that you're Corrine’s dad and he wants to know where his dad is.” 

“Ah,” he says, although he isn’t sure how to respond. “Does he... does he know about Baelfire?” 

“No. All he knows is what I thought I knew three days ago. His dad left me in jail pregnant with him and hasn’t come back. So now Corrine's dad is here, and...” 

“I see.” He sighs

“Yeah.” Corrine starts to wiggle and whine in Killian’s arms, and when she becomes more cognizant, she see’s Emma and reaches for her. Emma takes her gently and kisses her cheek before running her hand over her hair and shushing her until she relaxes against her. 

“Perhaps I could talk to him.” 

“About what, leather conditioner and eyeliner?” she laughs, bumping her shoulder into his.

He knows that she’s joking, and he wants to give it back to her, but instead he maintains his tone to show her that he’s serious. 

“I knew Bae as a boy. And, believe it or not, I was once a child.” 

“Yeah, like a million years ago,” she laughs, and he laughs too, because it feels good to have a banter with her again. He's missed so much of her over the last two years, and this was on the top of the list. 

“If Henry learns that I'm not as horrible as he may believe me to be,” he continues more seriously, “perhaps it would help him to come around to the fact that his own father isn't who he thought he was all this time.”

She pauses, appearing to be deep in thought, then turns to face him as her arm continues to slide up and down the baby’s back. “That’s actually a good point. He’s probably just upset that Corrine has a dad and he doesn’t. Although, we don’t know where Neal is yet.” 

“Right. He could be here, it’s just a matter of decriminalizing him in Henry’s eyes.” 

She hums thoughtfully, and when they get to the top of the stairs and Henry and David have already made their way through the door, she stops him. 

“My parents don’t remember anything from the last two years,” she tells him. “But you do, right?”

“Aye.”

“It might be helpful if you try and jog their memory about what happened when you arrived after the curse, but just don’t talk about it tonight with Henry here.”

“Alright, love.” 

“And Hook?” He looks to her and raises a brow. “My mom... don’t look too shocked when you see her. Remember that you’re all friends here, as far as Henry knows. So just... hold your face together.” 

“What the bloody hell do you mean, Swan?” She’s being so cryptic that it’s worrying him. 

She doesn’t answer him, choosing instead to raise her brows and swing the door open with her foot. When he enters behind her, her mother steps towards them and he sees immediately what Emma meant. She’s pregnant. 

She stands beside Emma, clearly dying to take the baby from her daughter’s arms and say hello but needing to maintain the air of casual friendship between them for her grandson’s sake. She hugs Emma for a moment before Corrine fusses and practically pushes her away. She laughs and then she’s stepping towards Killian and hugging him tightly as well, as tightly as she can with the large bump sitting between them. “Welcome back,” she says to him as she pulls away.

They spend the remainder of the evening eating dinner and talking unnaturally so as to not tip Henry off to the fact that the people with whom they are sharing a meal: are his grandparents; are technically younger than his mother; and are king and queen of a magical realm and were ripped back into Maine via Dark Curse. He wants so badly to discuss what the bloody hell has happened to them, but he knows that they can’t. Corrine sits in Emma’s lap and she tries with great effort to get her to sit still. She eats a bit of spaghetti, but more of it seems to end up on the floor and on Emma’s lap, so she gives up when she seems uninterested. Just as easily as she warmed up to Killian, she seems to enjoy the company of the king and queen, pattering in circles around the table and laughing and falling to the floor each time David jumps out at her as she rounds the corner. 

When dinner is over, they walk to Granny’s, rent two rooms, and Emma puts the children to bed. He, Emma, David, and Snow spend the rest of the evening in the lobby discussing their plans. Neal is nowhere to be found thus far, and Emma wants to find him sooner rather than later in hopes that he knows something about the curse. She also makes mention of wanting Henry to know his father once it’s logical to tell him the truth. 

“Killian,” Queen Snow says when the conversation lulls and plans have been made. She takes David’s hand in hers. “We want to welcome you. It was certainly a surprise— to see you, I mean— but we’re happy to see you.” 

He can read her meaning despite her apparent apprehension to actually say the words. She could say them now— Henry is asleep upstairs and wouldn’t hear—but it would seem that part of her would rather not make the situation a reality by putting it to words. The Queen has always been welcoming, even when he was behaving poorly in Neverland or in the Enchanted Forest. Her willingness to open her arms as much as she has to him, when it’s clear that there was something between himself and Emma of which she and her husband may not approve, astonishes him. She doesn’t seem to pass a single lick of judgement towards either himself or Emma for their actions and the consequences of those actions, and Killian feels a sense of calm wash over him. Their clear acceptance of his child, despite their inability to even talk about the subject, means more to him than he thought it would. 

~~~~

The next morning, they meet early at Granny’s Diner. It's almost too early, and when he sees Emma’s bright face at the ungodly hour, he wonders how the hell she can have so much energy. 

Then he sees Corrine and knows that she must wake Emma early each and every day. He wonders what else he’s missed in the last two years, while Emma was raising their child alone and with little support. He wonders if she would be different from how she is now if he was in her life from the start. He wonders if she’ll change going forward. 

He wonders when he and Emma can talk about her plans going forward, because he desperately wants to be in his daughter’s life for the rest of his own. 

Corrine toddles purposely towards him when she and her mother enter the diner and reaches up for him. “Up,” she demands pointedly. 

“What do we have here?” Granny asks with a smirk clear in her tone once he settles her on his leg. “Sorry, I thought I rented a room to Captain Hook last night, but I think I must have had him mistaken for Captain Daddy.” 

“Granny! Please don’t call him that ever again!” Ruby shouts from the kitchen, and Killian’s cheeks erupt in a blaze of heat. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” 

Granny shrugs, topping off his mug with hot coffee as he sits down with Corrine on his lap. “If you wanna talk, talk fast. We open in 20, and  _ no one _ gets between Leroy and his bacon.” 

“Hi,” Corrine says, and when he turns, he sees Emma making her way towards them. 

“Hi baby,” she says, tickling her fat belly. “Hi, Hook.” 

“Morning, love. Sleep well?” 

“Ugh, I didn’t miss not having any memories of those mattresses,” she jests. Granny’s walking over to them with another mug topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, but pulls it away and narrows her eyes at Emma before placing it down with a playful smile. 

“Don’t I know it. Is Henry still asleep?” 

“Yeah, we snuck out. Left him a note that we were grabbing him breakfast.” He hums and nods. “Dad should be here soon, but I think we’re gonna spend the day looking for Neal. Mom will probably stay with the kids.” 

“Right.”

“That is...” she starts awkwardly. “Um, if... are you okay with that?” she asks slowly as if unsure of his answer. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Well, I mean—” 

“Alright, everyone ready?” David’s commanding voice overtakes the diner. “We'll break off into the woods. We haven't seen Neal around town, and we also don’t know where the Dark One is. For all we know, the Dark One could be back in full force, and Neal could be in danger. Although, he hasn't come to Belle yet. Either way, for Henry’s sake, I’d like to find Neal as soon as possible. I’m gonna go talk to Belle this morning and see if she’s learned anything new.” 

“What about our new arrivals?” Regina asks, referring to Robin Hood and his team, who have begun to trickle in. 

“They're searching for one of theirs, too. They’ll focus on him; we’ll focus on Neal. So far, we haven’t found anyone else to be missing, but Snow is still working on a count of everyone who’s come over in this curse.”

“What about who cast the curse?” Granny asks. 

“Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s what you're all thinking,” Regina says. 

“Then I can only think of one other person powerful and vengeful enough to do something like this. The Dark One is nowhere to be found—who else would have done this?” Leroy asks. 

“That’s important, too, but I think for right now, we need to focus on everyone’s immediate safety, and that includes everyone’s whereabouts. Regina has agreed to look into this new curse, and she’ll try and find out if The Dark One is behind it.”

Everyone nods. It's strange, being back here and bossed around by the King again when he spent the last two years trying to get back into his pirating life. For some reason, he doesn’t mind it. He always did thrive under the authority of a strong leader. 

Emma and Corrine go back upstairs to get Henry, and Killian waits for them while he finishes his coffee and donut. If there’s one thing he can get used to in this new world, it’s donuts. He had far too many of them in Boston and New York before he found Emma, and if he isn’t careful, he’ll end up with a belly. 

They walk the children to Queen Snow’s apartment once the sun has come up and leave Henry with an angry snarl and Corrine with a pathetic cry. It's the first time he’s seen her upset, and it very nearly kills him. 

Once they're in the woods, David talks their ear off about the missing two years and how strange it is to not know anything of what’s happened. Killian makes a remark about his bad luck, what with it being almost harvest time and him being unable to remember the planting, and Emma elbows him in the ribs. 

The King takes a step back from them, noting that he needs to talk to his wife on the phone, and they find themselves in the woods on their own after a few minutes of trekking. 

She asks him what he was up to for the last two years. She says it must have been one swashbuckling tale after another. If she thinks he’s going to tell her exactly what he was up to while he was quite literally mourning the loss of her, she’s absolutely mad, so he does what he does best and deflects, saying that she can thank him for saving her from a loveless marriage. He’s a fool. 

“Were you considering it? His proposal?”

“Does it matter?”

“Humor me.” He’s a  _ fool _ . 

“Yes, okay?” She answers him in haste, pushing the words from her mouth quickly and breathlessly. “I was in love, so of course I was considering it. As usual, he wasn’t who he said he was, and I got my heart broken. Is that enough humor for you?” The way she brushes off her experience of heartbreak haunts him. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I'm glad to hear it.” 

“You're glad to hear I got my heart broken?” The look on her face tells him two things: she wants to kill him, and her heart is truly shattering. 

“If it can be broken, that means it still works,” he says to her in a low tone, taking one step closer than perhaps he should have. 

She looks like she wants to turn around and run from him. He would anticipate that Emma from two years ago would do exactly that. But this is not Emma from two years ago. So, rather than expecting her to run or to make the first move as she has three times already, he takes the leap himself and places his hand on her cheek, stepping closer still and breathing slowly in her space. She doesn’t retreat, so he pushes forward until his lips finally meet hers again and everything falls into place. 

She's kissing him back in an instant, her hands finding their way to his hair as they had each time the two of them have found themselves in this position. What started as a slow, soft kiss immediately erupts into a fire of passion as her tongue snakes out against his, and he thrusts his hand into her hair as his other arm runs along her side, pressing into her until she’s backed against a tree. He'd be embarrassed by the adolescent-speed at which his hardness appears against her if she wasn’t pushing herself into him and dragging her hands slowly down his back to rest them on his ass, pulling towards herself. 

It's as if his body has taken over; his mind is completely consumed by her. There isn't a single part of her that doesn’t seem to want him as badly as he wants her. He moves his hand from her hair to trail it down her body, instantly remembering the way her curves felt against his skin and craving the feeling of her soft skin again. He rakes his hand down farther, his other arm following closely until he’s bending at his knees and placing his arms beneath her thighs, hoisting her into the air without breaking their mouths apart. 

She moans into his mouth as he presses her body against the tree with his own and her legs wrap around his torso so quickly that it's as if she’s doing it involuntarily. She squeezes her thighs together around him and he swears he could come just from this feeling alone; the feeling of finally being back with her. His emotions nearly get the better of him when he thinks about the fact that he was certain he would never be here again, but the tug she gives to his hair pulls him back to the feeling of her mouth against his. 

The sound that seems to come from her throat when he bites her bottom lip nearly drives him to the point where he removes some of her clothing, until they hear the snap of a branch from behind them and spring apart, expecting to see a shocked and disgusted look on her father’s face. 

What they don’t expect is to see a dirty and disheveled Neal standing before them.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WhoOooOOo cast the curse???? Also Neal is back!! Thoughts? Send me a message on tumblr if you want!


	4. Chapter 3

Hook drops Emma from her position against him so quickly that she thinks she might have whiplash. When they heard the branch snapping from behind Hook, Emma was certain she was about to get an earful from her father. She wouldn’t blame him, either; Emma would be completely horrified to walk in on Henry very aggressively making out with someone she may or may not approve of. But the offending twig-snapper isn’t David. 

It’s Neal. And he looks horrible. 

His hair is greasy, he’s covered in dirt, and his shirt is torn and wrinkled. 

“Neal?” Emma says in shock, breaking away from a panting Hook and stepping over to him. 

“Hey,” he returns casually, as if everything that’s happening right now is completely normal and he hasn’t been missing for days. 

“What the hell is going on? Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you and your dad.”

“What are you guys doing?”

Emma cocks her head to one side as she hears Hook shuffle towards her and Neal. She offhandedly wonders if her hunch about why it took him so long to turn around is accurate but pushes the thought aside. 

“I said we were out here looking for you. No one has memories from before the curse, so no one knew where you were.”

“Are you guys together?” She thinks he could be angry, but why would he be? Why is this all he can focus on?

“Neal, will you come with us? We’ll take you to the doctor. You need to be checked out if you’ve been out in the woods since the curse.” 

He agrees to go with them, Killian quietly following behind as she and Neal trek through the woods towards the car. She makes attempts at small talk with him, desiring not to get into anything heavy before she knows the status of his health, but he seems distracted. Something about him is off, and she hopes it’s only because he’s spent several days in the cold. 

When they arrive at the hospital, Neal is checked in and given the time he needs to rest before Emma, Hook, and David make their way into his room.

“Neal, what happened out there?”

“I... don’t know. I remember seeing the yellow bug cross the town line, and next thing I know, I'm running around a forest back in Storybrooke where, apparently, there’s been... a whole lot going on.” he laughs heavily towards Hook, but she can tell by his tone that he’s stressed and upset. 

“Are you gonna tell him, or shall I?” Hook asks, staring pointedly at David. 

“Tell me what?” Neal’s tone is short and snappy.

“Neal, we think your dad could be behind this,” David tells him somberly. 

“What? What do you mean, my dad did this? There’s no way, not after everything he did to help us beat Pan.” 

Rumpelstiltskin may have attempted to sacrifice himself to defeat Peter Pan prior to the last curse, but the fact that there was no body or proof of his death only fueled Emma's suspicions: he simply said that what he was doing was deadly to make himself look like a hero. 

“Take it easy,” she says to Neal, holding out her hands towards him, but when she leans forward, something catches her eye. Staining the center of his palm was a burn in the shape of a hollow triangle surrounded by squiggles. “What the hell is that?” she asks, picking up his hand. 

“I have no idea; it was there when I woke up.” He sounds defeated now, so rather than push him, she backs off. 

“I'm gonna ask Belle to do some more research; I’ll send her a picture.” 

“Can we have a minute, Emma?” Neal asks, and David answers affirmatively, directing Hook out of the room. “It’s good to see you,” he says once they’re alone.

She smiles softly at him. “It’s good to see you too, Neal.”

“When can I see Henry?” 

She sighs. He's really jumping into this. “Neal, I don’t think... My memories came back, but he doesn’t remember anything about the curse or his old life.”

“What does he know about his father?” he asks with a bit more hostility to his tone. 

“Exactly what I knew before I took the memory potion,” she answers honestly. Her cursed self didn’t know that Neal had come back and attempted to redeem himself, and she sees no good way of telling Henry that without completely destroying his concept of reality— aside from bringing his memories back. 

“So, what, he just has no clue who I really am? He just thinks that I'm the jerk who abandoned him? You have to get his memories back, Ems, we have to fix this!”

“Neal—”

“This is Hook’s fault. Why did he bring enough memory potion for you and not for our son? He wants to sabotage us, Emma, can’t you see that?” 

“Neal!”

“I’m his father,” he says forcefully. “I want him to know who I am without some pirate getting in the way.” 

She's stunned. His demeanor has shifted so quickly that it’s making her head spin, and how he’s managing to blame this all on Hook is a mystery to her. 

“Hook has nothing to do with this, Neal. He's the reason I'm back here in the first place, sure, but you can’t blame him for this curse or for Henry’s memories.” 

She sees his face shift quickly again as if he snapped and composed himself. “You're right, you're right. I'm sorry. I just... I just wanted to get my family back. I wanted to be with you and Henry.” She narrows her eyes, because was he just lying? “So, New York, huh?” 

~~~~

“It was so weird,” Emma says as she and Hook finally arrive at Granny’s. “It was like… his mind was all over the place. He couldn’t focus on what I was saying. It was almost creepy the way his face shifted so quickly.”

“He’s been through a lot,” he reasons. “Can she eat this?”

She looks at the glazed donut he’s pointing to and shakes her head. “Not unless you want to chase her around Main Street for the next hour, then deal with the tantrum when she crashes.” Of course he wants to spoil her already. He buys the damn donut and eats it himself on their way to the booth.

He shrugs, leading her to the table in the corner of the diner. Once they’ve sat down, Ruby brings menus and water. “What’ll it be, Swan?”

“You’re awfully chipper.”

“Well, we found Baelfire, safe and sound. Which means we’re one step closer to finding out who cast this bloody curse and moving on with our lives.”

“I guess you’re right. Then I can take the kids back to New York and be done with all this.”

He freezes with the page of his menu half turned over, his head still tilted down towards the table but his eyes staring at her from beneath his lashes. “So, you’re—”

“Momma!” a voice calls, and Emma can’t hold in the grin as she turns towards the door. Corrine toddles towards her, holding out her roll-covered arms and followed closely by Henry and Mary Margaret. 

“Hi Coco!” Emma returns, picking her up and planting a fat kiss on her cheek. “Did you have fun with momma’s friend?”

“No!” she shouts with a giggle. Hook raises his brows at Emma in shock.

“She says no for everything,” Emma explains with a laugh. “Hey, kid. How was your morning?”

“Fine, I guess,” Henry answers. 

“Henry was very helpful in taking care of his sister,” Mary Margaret says, pointing a smile in his direction. He shrugs. 

“Thank you again, that was helpful. Are you gonna have lunch with us, mo— Mary Margaret?”

She smiles at Emma now, shrugging a shoulder up and saying, “why not?” as she sits down next to Hook. They each order lunch, Emma offering Henry a  _ large _ order of onion rings by way of bribery, although he instead excuses himself and goes back up to their room. 

Ruby brings over a high chair for Corrine. She stays in it for a few minutes, but unfortunately there are no straps, and she starts climbing out of it. Emma watches Hook move swiftly to pick her up, his right hand firmly under her arms and his left prosthetic supporting her weight as much as possible. He places her in his lap and she sits happily and quietly, dancing back and forth and gnawing on a French fry until it turns into a soggy mess. 

Emma thinks she might melt. He’s transitioned into his role as a father completely effortlessly, and she’s genuinely a bit surprised. Even his decision not to wear his hook for now surprises her, because it’s clear to her that he’s not only doing it to keep Corrine safe, but also to avoid further confusing Henry. 

It’s been two years since she’s seen him, and she didn’t even remember him during that time. Still, though, a part of her thinks she missed him. They may have left things off on awkward and unknown terms, but she thinks they could have become friends if given the chance. Maybe more. Now that they  _ have  _ been given the chance, she thinks she has to take it. What kind of an idiot would she be if she didn’t?

Then there’s the whole sexual tension thing… Her memories of their entanglement aboard the Jolly Roger came back with a vengeance and she’d be lying if she said she hasn’t been thinking about him ever since she took that damn potion. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t stop herself from kissing him outside of her apartment. Or why she didn’t stop him from backing her against a tree and fervidly making out with her when they had more important things to worry about. Perhaps that’s why the image of him holding their daughter and tickling her occasionally just to hear her laugh is… affecting her. 

She has no time to dwell on her thoughts or feelings, because before she knows it, Neal is opening the door to Granny’s with a touch too much force and making his way over to them. 

“Hey guys,” he says casually. Emma’s heart starts to race at the thought of him spilling the beans to Henry about the fact that this is his father— she isn’t sure what the pouting teenager would do at this point. She just hopes that he stays upstairs rather than making an appearance and potentially setting off an apparently unstable Neal. 

“Neal, hi. I didn’t know you were getting out so quickly,” Emma responds. 

“Mind if I sit?” She does. His very presence is making her anxious. 

“Um—” He doesn’t wait for an answer as he begins moving Corrine’s high chair out of the way and replacing it with a chair. “Sure.”

Emma desperately wishes she could send Henry some kind of signal that says  _ stay upstairs! _ Neal’s thoughts were so disorganized at the hospital that she isn’t sure what he’d be capable of if he actually saw Henry.

“Is this your kid, Hook?” She breathes deeply in an attempt to calm herself down. This line of questioning is certainly not ideal.

“Uh, aye, mate, she is.”

“Cute, even though she looks just like you,” he quips. “What's her name?” She sees Hook swallow. 

“This is Corrine,” Hook says slowly, his grip on her tightening as his protective instincts click into the  _ on _ position.

Neal nods in her direction as if greeting her, then breathes out a laugh through his nose. “Who'd you knock up?”

Her breath catches and her heart is hammering in her chest. Based on the way he asked her about whether or not she and Hook were together in the hospital, then blamed him for Henry not having his memories, she thinks this is about to go very, very badly. He seems to be a loose canon, and she isn’t ready to pick up the mess he leaves behind when he learns the truth. She’s just thankful that Henry isn’t here to witness this. 

“Um,” Hook starts, his eyes darting left and right but blessedly not meeting Emma’s. “Uh—”

“Emma!”  _ Thank god.  _ Emma nearly collapses in relief at the interruption. 

She turns and is met with Regina’s usual angry face and Belle close behind her. 

“Hi,” she says to the both of them a bit unnaturally, her heart still pounding against her ribs and her palms sweating. She can feel Hook’s eyes shooting into her but she avoids meeting them with hers. 

“Neal, how are you feeling?” Emma has never been so grateful to have her mother with her than she is at this moment. She shoots her a thankful smile for changing the subject and serving as a distraction from the topic, then gets up to talk to Belle and Regina. 

“What’s up?”

“Belle found something about the burn on his hand,” Regina says shortly, once they’re outside and out of earshot. 

Emma nods as Belle takes over, taking a seat and showing her a book open to a page with a familiar image on it. “It’s a symbol for the vault of the Dark One.”

“What does that mean?”

“It either means that Neal was trying to resurrect the Dark One, or he was trying to summon his dagger.”

“Summon his dagger? Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, but I think we need to be careful. It could mean that he was trying to control him.”

“Yeah. Why would he want to summon the Dark One? Or control him? Neal hated that his dad used dark magic.”

“Think about it, Miss Swan. Don’t you think he would have done  _ anything _ to get back to you and Henry? I know I would have.”

She wants to roll her eyes at Regina, but holds the urge in and nods. “Right, but you didn’t. You certainly could have been the one to cast this curse, but I’m choosing to believe that you didn’t do it. Neal wouldn’t either, at least the Neal that I know. He wouldn’t have endangered anyone by casting a curse this dangerous.”

Regina does roll her eyes. “Either way, I’m not sure we can trust someone desperate enough to summon the Dark One’s dagger. That means he needs to _control_ _Rumple_.”

“I wish you guys had your memories back. Maybe Hook would know if Gold was in the Enchanted Forest when you guys arrived. We don’t even know for sure if he died or not.”

“Whether Rumple is alive or not, I have a bad feeling,” Belle says ominously, and Emma narrows her eyes and looks over to her. 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” she responds, shaking her head. “‘I just have this feeling like something is wrong. I can’t shake it.”

“Okay,” Emma says, unsure of how to respond in a way that would be at all helpful. Honestly, she doesn’t think she’s ever had a  _ good  _ feeling about Rumplestiltskin. “We’ll just keep an eye out, I guess. Keep looking into the curse, and I’ll see if… Robin Hood had any luck finding his… his Merry Man.” 

Belle nods thoughtfully and stands from the table, leaving Granny’s and starting towards Gold’s shop. 

“Ready?” Regina asks Emma once Belle has left. 

“Yeah, let me just say bye and we can go.”

She steps towards the door, then thinks better of it. She really, really doesn’t want Neal to know that she and Hook have a kid together right now, and what would happen if she went into the diner to say goodbye and Corrine tried to go to her? 

She battles with herself long enough to hear Regina’s huff from behind her and finally decides that she can’t just leave without at least saying  _ something _ , so she walks in purposefully and sits back at the table. 

“Hi,” Corrine says to her coolly, and Emma thanks her silently for not referring to her as  _ momma _ . Good thing she seems to have warmed up to her dad immediately upon meeting him, because now it’s as if she doesn’t need Emma at all. Her feelings aren’t hurt at all, honest. 

“Hi,” she grins back, turning towards Hook. “I’m gonna go with Regina. She and I are gonna work on the memory potion and hopefully get some answers.”

“Very good, Swan. Best of luck.” He looks at Emma, raises a brow, then looks back down at Corrine pointedly. Emma nods once. 

“Are you guys staying here for the afternoon?”

“Aye, your mother and I were just discussing perhaps heading to the, uh,  _ park?  _ later.” Mary Margaret nods at him with a smile of confirmation. His lack of knowledge of the modern world certainly is endearing. 

Emma nods again, tossing her mother a smile and trying not to picture Hook at the playground with Corrine. “Think you can bring Henry with you? He shouldn’t be in his room on his phone all day, his brain will rot.”

“I can take him,” Neal says.  _ Shit.  _ What was she thinking?

“Neal… I don’t know. He doesn’t have his—”

“I know about his damn memories, Emma,” he snaps breathily. 

She sits back in her seat, moving away from Neal without really meaning to. “I just really don’t think that’s best right now,” she says more firmly than she feels she should need to. “Not having his memories means he  _ doesn’t know you _ , Neal. I don't want him to be any more uncomfortable than he already is.”

He scoffs. “What, Hook is gonna make him more comfortable than his own dad? He’s too distracted by his own kid.”

“Bae,” Hook starts. He gives her a look as if he’s just as shocked by Neal’s behavior as she is. 

“Bae,” Corrine repeats, and Emma can’t help but smile at her. Dammit, she’s cute. Of course she would pick up on that—she loves one-syllable words. 

“Whatever,” Neal says, getting up from the table with such force that it moves towards Hook and Corrine. Emma feels her fight or flight instincts kicking in at the heavy object being pushed towards her daughter, but Hook backs up quickly. “Have fun with  _ my  _ kid, asshole.”

~~~~

“How is he?” Regina asks once they enter her vault. 

Emma takes a beat before answering, “fine, I guess. He’s a little… moody lately.”

“What do you mean?” 

She shrugs. “Just that I think it’s all a little hard on him. As far as he knows, his dad abandoned him and me, and now Corrine’s dad is here and making an effort, and that’s confusing to him.”

Regina sighs, too, turning back to the chest she was looking through before continuing. “I wish I could talk to him. I mean, really talk to him. As his mother.”

“Yeah, this will be a lot easier when all of this is done. I wish I could tell him about his dad and not seem like I’m making it up to make him feel better.”

“Emma, I know he doesn’t have his memories, but I’d like to see him. I’ve missed him so much… I mean, I assume I have. It just kills me to know that he doesn’t remember me.”

“I know, I know,” she says, sighing and flipping another page. “I don’t know, maybe you can come to dinner or something. I mean, as far as he’s concerned, you’re just madam mayor, but maybe you can be another friend from my past.”

She nods, and it’s quiet. 

“I still can’t believe you left him with the pirate,” she says after a few minutes of silence.

“I trust him. He brought me back to Storybrooke and he didn’t have to.”

She scoffs. “Of course he brought  _ you _ back.”

The theme of Emma’s day seems to be  _ Hook brought you back to hurt me,  _ and frankly, Emma’s tired of it. “Look, all I know is what Hook told me; that he got a message from a bird on the wheel of his ship, with this bottle attached to it. What reason do I have to doubt him?”

She scoffs again, and if she was facing Emma, she’s sure she would catch an eye roll. “Maybe the fact that the two of you seem to be  _ quite  _ close is reason enough to lie for him?” 

“First of all,” Emma starts, her blood boiling in her veins. “Do  _ not  _ bring my child into this. I may have had to accept that you and I are tied together with raising Henry, but Corrine is  _ my daughter.”  _ She closes the book she was thumbing through with a bit more force than is strictly necessary and gets up from her stool, stepping towards Regina. “Second, if I really wanted to keep Henry from you, why the hell would I have brought him back here? I think you’re angry, and you’re taking it out on the wrong person. Our job is to find out who you can take your anger out on, okay?” 

Regina turns back to the chest and nods.

~~~~

“They’re asleep,” Emma says as she shuts the door to her room and steps into the lobby where Hook has been waiting. “Didn’t take long since you tired them out.” 

“Very good,” he says with a soft smile before turning his attention back to the unlit fireplace. It appears as if he’s almost got it ready to light, but he continues to scrunch up old newspaper and tuck it into the pile loosely and methodically. 

“You do a lot of that over the last two years?” She asks. She honestly doesn’t care much about his answer; she asks only to gain insight into his time away. She wonders if he missed her as much as she thinks she would have missed him. 

“At times, I suppose. Wasn’t always necessary on the Jolly Roger.”

“So, what, you spent the whole two years on the ship? Were you pirating all that time?” 

He sighs and shifts uncomfortably. “Mr. Smee and I regained her from Blackbeard after a few months, then I did some sailing, yes.” 

She hums and nods, making her way to a couch and grabbing a throw blanket before sitting down. He’s gotten the fire lit, but he doesn’t move from in front of it. “So where is  _ she _ now, then, if not here?”

He shrugs. 

“I mean, you didn’t get swept up in the curse, and the bird landed on the wheel, so what happened to the ship?” He sighs again, standing from his place and picking up the poker. He stabs into the fire a few times and refuses to turn towards her. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine. Being the only one with any memories from the last two years, I just thought you might want to talk about it. Plus. I was curious.” 

He clears his throat. “Sorry Swan, I don’t mean to be short. Nothing happened. The ship’s not here.”

“Okay…” They fade into silence for several moments as he continues to stubbornly poke at the fire. 

“Are you really leaving after this is over?” he asks suddenly, and his demeanor makes sense.

“I mean… yeah, I think so. Henry doesn’t remember this life. He has a life in New York, and it’s  _ good. _ I can’t keep him from that.”

“I—” he starts, seeming to choke on his own words. He breathes in deeply, and she notes the tension in his shoulders as he stands, facing the hot flames. “I know I haven’t been here for her, but… Corrine, she’s…” 

_ Shit.  _ She should have known. He’s displayed nothing but desire to be with her since he met her, why would that change once they figure out who cast the curse? “Killian,” she says, and he turns towards her, finally. “I’m sorry.”

His face falls immediately, his shoulder slumping. “It’s alright, love. I can’t force you to stay.” 

She pinches her brows together in thought until she understands his meaning fully, then flings the blanket off of her lap and leaps from the couch, striding towards him and taking his hand in hers. “No, Killian, I meant that I’m sorry that I didn’t think this through more. With  _ you _ .” His face is tilted towards their joining hands, but when she speaks, he looks up at her through his thick lashes. “We haven’t really talked about this.” 

“No, we haven’t,” he agrees.

Things between them have been left unsaid for days. He’s enmeshed himself into their daughter’s life, and they haven’t even spoken about their plans. This is not how coparenting should work. “She really likes you,” she says, as if that’s at all helpful. 

He chuckles sadly, finally letting a small smile break across his face. “I really like her, as well.” She laughs too. “Emma… I don’t know how to say this and not sound deranged but… she means so much to me already. It means so much to me that you’ve allowed me to become closer to her over the last few days.”

“That doesn’t sound deranged,” she says as comfortingly as she can, squeezing his hand. Her two years of thinking she’s raised Henry, as well as raising an emotional 15 month old, has certainly improved her ability to recognize and respond to other people’s feelings. She’s glad for that in this moment. “You’re her father, it makes perfect sense.” 

He squeezes her hand back now, looking down at the floor and closing his eyes. “It doesn’t feel real. I came back here to get you and I ended up… a father.” 

“It’s a lot.”

He takes a deep breath. “Aye. I want to be in her life, Emma. I want to be in all of your lives. Yours, Corrine’s, and Henry’s. I know this may be too much too soon, and I’m sorry for that, but—”

His words are cut off by her mouth. Maybe it’s the warmth of the fire, or the cozy lighting in the room, or the fact that they had a little bit of a win today in finding Neal alive, but she can’t stop herself from molding her mouth to his. He breathes into her before moving his hand out of her grip and around her waist, pulling her close to him and deepening the kiss almost immediately. It isn’t as fervent as the last kiss between them, and she’s glad for that. 

This kiss is emotional. It’s almost too emotional. She can feel Killian pinching his brows together as he breathes her in, and it makes her heart race almost as much as the feeling of his hand running along her side does. She slinks her own fingers into his thick hair in order to get a better grip and tug him closer to her, then tilts her head so that she can slide her tongue against his, the heat of him against her warming her straight to her core. 

She begins to back up, pulling him along with her until the back of her legs hit the couch and she breaks away from him so that she can sit down, he looks down at her, and the way that his pupils are blown wide makes her blood boil in her veins and arousal flood through her. She pulls him down with her so that he’s sitting beside her, then heaves herself up so that she can straddle her legs across his, asking for his permission with her eyes. He nods at her, slipping a hand into her hair and pulling her mouth back down to his. 

She sighs into his mouth, moving her legs slightly so that they don’t cramp and running her hands up and down along his leather-clad back. She wants to take his shirt off so badly; wants to rake her fingernails through the coarse hair on his chest and run her mouth along his collarbone as she had the one and only night they were together. She wants  _ him _ , and that desire becomes stronger and stronger with each touch of his hand along her body. It’s clear to her that he wants her, too, when she draws her hips down against his. His palm finds her ass and squeezes, and her breath catches in her throat when he moves his mouth from hers and starts to drag it along the column of her neck. 

“ _ Fuck, _ ” she whispers into the darkness of the lobby when his teeth nip lightly against the lobe of her ear. 

“Not there, you won’t,” they hear, and she doesn’t think she’s ever moved faster in her life, hopping off of his lap so that the springs in the couch creak in protest. “Just finished some laundry, and now I’m off to bed. I hope there wasn’t any problem with your room, Hook?” 

He clears his throat and says, “N-no, no problem.” 

“Great. See you two in the morning— hopefully well rested.”

Mortified, they can barely look at each other as Killian gets up from the couch and snuffs the fire before leading her gently down the hall of the inn and stopping at her door and leaning his shoulder against the wall. “Sorry, love,” he says, his tone warm and sultry seemingly without him even meaning for it to be. 

“It's okay,” she whispers once she finally finds it in herself to look up at him from beneath her lashes and smile. 

“Just,” he starts softly as he takes her hand in his. “Storybrooke was your home once. Perhaps it can be again.” 

She sighs. “I don’t know. Henry’s life in New York was really good. And  _ that’s  _ what’s real to him. I have to do what’s best for him.”

“And if the curse breaks and he decides he wants to stay?” He squeezes her hand. He’s pushing her limits, and he knows it. 

“He’s thirteen. I’m his mother.” 

“Aye.” His voice is so low she can barely hear it over the rumble in his chest. “Well, I’d encourage you to stay with your family, but I want what’s best for you, always.” 

She smiles at him again, sighing once more and finally, finally leaning her head down against his collarbone like she’s been wanting to do. “It’s not about me,” she mumbles. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice to raise Corrine here rather than in that big, horrible city?” She snorts. “No matter, Swan. I’ll stand by whatever decision you make.” 

She lifts her head. “Even if it means us leaving you?” 

He pinches his brows together at her and leans in a bit before brushing a wisp of hair out of her face. “Surely you must know, Swan, that I don’t intend to ever leave her again? I’d go to the end of the world for her. And for you and Henry.” 

She has no words. Her thoughts are springing at her rapidly, but she can’t make enough sense of them to actually say anything. She can see through his tactic of not giving her a choice. He wants her to know that he’s serious, and that he’s sticking around no matter what. She thinks that if she told him to stay away he would ultimately listen, but she doesn’t intend to do that. 

“She’s quite literally the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Emma. You must know that, don’t you? I don’t intend to lose her again when I’ve already lost so much precious time with her.”

She has no words. She leans up on her toes so that she can meet his lips with a gentle kiss. “I know that,” she says when she finally breaks away. “It’s just hard to remember it.” 

He leans back down to her and kisses her back, taking her lips between his softly. “I must say, your walls aren’t built nearly as high as I remember them being.” 

“We have a kid together,” she deadpans with a laugh. 

“Well…” he shrugs. 

“They changed me. Raising her and thinking I raised him… it changed me.” 

“Well, I suppose I can get used to not having to climb quite as high. Though I still would.” 

She presses her forehead to his and closes her eyes, breathing in the soft smell of leather and rum as their noses gently touch. “I have to go to bed,” she whispers. 

“Think about it, will you? I know you're scared, but think about staying?”

She nods, her nose running along his, before pulling away quickly in hope that the loss of him against her would hurt less, then rushes into her room and closes the door to lean her back against it. 

Emma hardly sleeps, and is decidedly  _ not _ well rested the next morning. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Neal huh? Thoughts????? The ~Kissin?? Thoughts???????????


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! Stay safe and read fic!

Killian thinks that Henry might finally be warming up to him— again. Before the curse, the two of them got along quite well, but that was presumably because Killian was a pirate and Henry was an eleven year old boy. Now that he’s emerging into teenage-hood, Hook has his work cut out for him. 

Over the last four weeks, Emma has been entrusting Killian with the care of her two children more and more frequently. Each time she goes out with David or Regina in hopes of finding out information about the curse, she leaves the two of them with Killian and asks him to watch over them. He enjoys it— and it hasn’t been too difficult. Sure, Corrine will throw the occasional  _ temper tantrum _ , as Emma calls them, but it’s nothing a bit of bribery can’t handle. 

Since his arrival in Storybrooke, Killian has finally invested in a talking phone, and he finds them to be very useful when a distraction is necessary. All he needs to do is locate something that Henry calls a  _ music video _ using something else that he calls  _ the internet _ and she’s back to her happy self. Apparently, Emma was right in her assessment that Corrine loves this Direction group. 

“Hawwy?” Corrine asks while being pushed on the swing. It’s sometimes difficult to determine whether she’s asking for the music or for her brother, but when she points to Henry on the nearby bench ticking away at his phone, it’s clear. 

“Henry,” Killian corrects. He’s learned that children can pick up on language easily which is why Killian frequently corrects her, although Corrine is stubborn like her mother and refuses to call Henry by his actual name. “He’s on his talking phone again, isn’t he?”

She nods at him, laughing when he pushes her a bit higher. The weather is getting cooler and cooler with each passing day, but there seems to be nothing that Corrine loves more than playing on this swing. Aside from, perhaps, the Direction. 

(As much as he’s tried to fight it, he can’t deny that the music they produce is quite catchy.)

“Think we can get him off of it?” 

She giggles and says, “No!”

Killian nods, stopping the swing and accepting his daughter’s challenge. “Henry,” he calls, earning a brief tilt of his head before Henry turns his gaze back to the device’s screen. “Want to take a walk down to the pier, lad?”

He sees him sigh dramatically, tucking the device back into his coat pocket and standing. If Killian was any closer, he’s sure he would have seen an eye roll that could rival his mother’s. 

“Sure, I guess,” he says once he’s closer to them. Killian hoists Corrine from the swing and props her on his hip until she wiggles fiercely enough to be put on the ground. 

“You know, I used to have a ship that sat in this very pier,” he tells Henry. 

“Really?”

“Aye,” he answers as they start walking. He attempts to hold Corrine’s hand but she’s having none of it, so he follows closely behind her as they head down the sidewalk. 

“What happened to it?”

“What a logical question,” Killian laughs. “She’s not here any longer, but I think we can find another vessel to captain. Perhaps you and I could take one out on the high seas one day.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Aye, lad.”

As they get closer to the pier, Corrine appears to tire and sits down stubbornly, so Killian scoops her up and places her on his shoulders. 

“How’d you learn to sail?”

Killian smirks to himself at Henry’s apparent interest. “I grew up around ships, then was in the navy many years ago. I sailed all across the real- the world with my older brother.”

“You grew up on a ship?” He nods in confirmation. “Cool. Did your parents own the ship?” 

Killian clears his throat. As much as he knows it may be helpful for the boy to hear of his upbringing, specifically his lack of a father figure, he struggles to relive his past and also to decide what parts of his story would actually make sense to Henry. “No, actually. I didn’t have my parents much growing up.”

“Really?” he asks, finally looking up at Killian rather than straight ahead. 

“Aye. My mother passed away when I was young, and my father… well, he abandoned my brother and me.”

“Woah,” Henry says, turning back away and slowing his pace. 

“Uh oh!” Corrine shouts as she tugs on his hair.  _ Like mother, like daughter _ , he thinks with a smirk. 

“I know it may be difficult for you now, lad, to see me in Corrine’s life all of a sudden. Especially since you don’t know who your father is.”

“‘I know who he is; he’s an asshole who left my mom in jail.” 

“Ooh!” Corrine exclaims, pointing as the boats come into view. “That!”

“That’s a boat,” he explains, then sighs. “Be that as it may…” he starts slowly. He doesn’t want to lie and disagree with Henry, because he genuinely thinks he’s right, but he also doesn’t want to soil his image of his father any more than it already has been. “I’d like to apologize.”

“Boat!”

“Aye, love. Boat.”

Henry shoots him a doubtful look and turns forward again, picking up his pace as the pier nears. “Why?”

“Well, because I wasn’t in Corrine’s life until just recently. I know that may have been difficult for you to see. But I want you to know that, now that I know of her and have met her, I don’t plan on going anywhere. I never want another child to feel the way that I felt when I was abandoned.” Henry nods pensively but says nothing. “I realize this excuse may do nothing to quell your anger, lad, but I didn’t know that your mother had had Corrine. Perhaps it’s possible that your father can say the same.” 

He scoffs, and Killian thinks he may have made a fatal mistake. “He still shouldn’t have left my mom like that. Maybe he didn’t know about me, but he knew about her, and I still think he sucks.” 

“As is your right, Henry. Now, come. Shall he see what vessels may be available to us? We simply need to convince your mother.”

Henry chuckles lightly. “Good luck with that.”

“Hey!” they hear from behind them, and Killian knows without turning around that it’s Bae. Emma has been strict with him about not seeing Henry more than any other random stranger because, unfortunately, that’s who he is to Henry at the moment, but he’s becoming more and more difficult to ward off. “What are you guys up to? Checking out your ship, Ho-Killian?”

“Hi,” Corrine says. Killian squeezes her thigh playfully.

“Just looking into some sailing, mate.”

“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Hey Henry, what’s up?”

Henry shrugs, obviously a bit uncomfortable with the exchange but not wanting to stir up any trouble. “Just like Killian said, we’re checking out the boats. We might take one out if my mom lets us.” 

He hums and nods. “Always gotta listen to what  _ mom _ says, huh?”

“Uh, yeah,” Henry responds. The more time that passes between them, the more uncomfortable Killian becomes. 

“You always listen to what Emma tells you to do, too, don’t you Killian? Seems like it’s always her way or the highway, doesn’t it?”

“Hey,” Henry starts, “What’s your problem?”

“Up!” the baby shouts, and Killian takes the interruption and runs with it. 

“Ah, up means down, mate,” he says to Bae. “Must be off before this one gets too antsy.” 

“Momma?” Killian jumps, hoping to whatever god may be listening that Emma did not choose this moment to show up.

“We’ll go see momma later, Corrine. We’re looking at the boats,” Henry tells her.

_ Bloody buggering fuck.  _ “Momma, huh? You guys are close to Emma?”

“Yeah, I’d say we’re pretty close to my  _ mom _ ,” Henry says hotly in response, pinching his brows together and shaking his head in confusion. 

“I meant Killian and the kid.” 

“Why  _ wouldn’t _ they be close with her? She’s her mom, too.” He’d make the lad walk the plank if he could, because he’s most certainly just blown their cover. 

Killian’s surprised it’s taken Bae this long to put the piece together. While he and Emma don’t spend a great deal of time together with Corrine during the day when Bae could see them, there isn’t anyone else around who could possibly pass as her mother, so he’s surprised that he hasn’t figured this one out. Perhaps it’s denial. 

“ _ What? _ ” he spits out. “You had a  _ kid  _ with  _ Emma?!”  _

“Bae—”

“Don’t! Don’t say anything! Anything you say right now is just gonna piss me off.”

“What’s going on? Killian, why is he so mad?”

“Yeah,  _ Killian,  _ why am I so mad?” His voice is venomous, and he can feel Corrine stiffening on his shoulders and he knows she’s about to cry. 

“Henry, let’s go. I think Corrine might like some ice cream, don’t you?”

“Okay…” he replies tentatively, turning to follow Killian as he starts back down the street. 

“Glad to see you haven’t changed,  _ Hook!” _

~~~~

Emma whacks her hand against the counter as a mug appears in front of Killian. “Boom!” she shouts.

“Boo!” Corrine tries to repeat, giggling up at him from her position in his lap. He smiles down at her briefly and looks up at Emma walking towards the two of them. 

“Mummy said ‘boom.’ Can you say boom?” he asks her. 

“Boo!” 

“Very nice effort, love.” He turns to Emma and says, “impressive.”

Killian is  _ stressed.  _ Once Emma returned from Regina’s, he sent Henry to spend some time with David and Mary Margaret, telling them that he needs to speak with her, but now that the time to do that has come, he’s terrified of how she’ll react. 

“You wanna see something  _ really _ impressive?” she asks, then waves her hand and suddenly, his rings are clattering against a table across the diner. She giggles, as does Corrine. 

He stands, rolling his eyes and placing the babe in Emma’s lap before trudging over to the table. “It’s bad form, Swan, tampering with a man’s things,” he scolds. 

“Okay, seriously? What is up with you?” 

“Up!”

“Right! What is up with him? What is up with your daddy?” She tickles Corrine’s belly until she’s rolling with laughter. He chokes slightly; it’s the first time that he’s heard the term come from Emma’s mouth. 

“I apologize for my rudeness,” he says, putting the rings back on and sitting down at the booth. “It’s a long story, and I’m afraid you won’t like the ending.” 

“Okay,” she starts slowly. “Well, obviously something’s up.”

“Up!” Corrine is practically screaming in Emma’s ear and Emma responds with a kiss to her chubby cheek. 

“Aye, there is. Henry, Corrine, and I took a walk to the pier today.”

“Hawwy!”

“Henry, love. Henry went with us, remember?” She shakes her head forcefully. “Well, Baelfire showed up.” 

He can see the moment that Emma’s blood runs cold. Her body stills and she seems to hold Corrine tighter in her lap, locking her arms protectively around her. 

“Shi-shoot.” 

“Oot! Momma, oot!” Emma sighs and smiles down at their daughter, then nuzzles their cheeks together. 

“Aye, and unfortunately, the lad became a bit… defensive… when Bae asked again who Corrine’s mother is.”

“No,” Emma drones, dropping her eyes shut and hugging Corrine closer until she’s squirming. 

“I’m sorry, love. I could have tried harder to stop his questioning, but Henry was so confused. All he knows is that this man suddenly got very angry when he found out who his sister is. Baelfire is… very different from the man we knew two years ago.”

“How upset was Henry?”

He shrugs, leaning so that he can rest his elbows on the table. “He was confused. I tried to brush it off and just told him that Neal and I have a past, but I could tell he wasn’t buying it.” Emma looks so tense. Corrine seems to be picking up on the shift in mood and wiggles in Emma’s arms until she’s able to turn and face her, resting her head against her mother’s chest. He sees Emma’s brows furrow as she hugs her back tightly. 

“He’s such a loose canon. How could he think that reaction would bode well for him seeing Henry?”

“Hawwy?” Emma smiles and nods at her. 

“Yeah, Coco.” He smiles at the differences between Emma and himself. Killian very nearly always corrects Corrine’s misspoken words, but Emma never does. “What are we gonna do? He must be so confused and there’s literally no good way to tell him what’s going on without breaking the curse. Not unless we tell him that Neal’s his dad, and I don’t know if I want to do that.”

“Aye, like I said, he’s a different man. Different, also, from the man Henry knew as his father.”

“I wonder what happened during those two years to set him off like this.” 

He sighs, nodding at her and picking up the mug of cocoa she  _ boom- _ ed over to him. “Last I saw him, he was heading towards his father’s castle with Belle to see if he was there. The crocodile didn’t travel to the Enchanted Forest with us in the curse, as you know.” 

Emma nods, too. “Yeah, but Belle doesn’t remember anything either. I just wish we could get this damn memory potion to work. Or just break the damn curse.”

“Damn,” Corrine says, earning a snort from her mother and a shocked look from her father. 

“Emma,” he starts as she laughs harder and he turns towards Corrine. “Love, don’t say that. Don’t repeat what your mummy says.” 

“Hey!” Emma laughs. 

“You’ve got her cursing now, Swan,” he says, but he can’t help but laugh along with her. 

“Well,” she says breathlessly, clearly trying to hold it together, before she begins to laugh again. Corrine is laughing now too. “Her father is a sailor. She was bound to grow up swearing like one.” 

“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Duddy hell,” Corrine says, and she can’t quite get a handle on those  _ L _ ’s. 

Emma’s laughter erupts from her with force. Her face is turning red, and Corrine stands up in her lap shakily and is pressing her palms to her cheek. “Momma!” she says as she laughs as well. 

Sound has stopped coming out of Emma’s lips as she continues laughing. She does her best to hold onto Corrine, but she wiggles out of her arms and to the floor before walking over to Killian. “Momma?” she asks as he picks her up. 

“She thinks she’s funny,” he tells her. “Getting you to repeat bad, bad words.” 

“Bad.”

“That’s right, my love. Very bad. Don’t say those words.” 

“Momma bad,” she says, whacking her palm against the table. “Boo! Momma bad!”

“See?” Emma says once she’s finally caught her breath. “She isn’t even saying any swears. She’s very smart.” 

“Aye, well, she’s her father’s daughter.” 

Emma bursts into another fit of laughter again. 

~~~~

“We can safely assume that Neal brought the dagger back so that he could control the Dark One,” Belle says later that night when the sun is down and the children are sleeping. “We can also assume that getting Henry and Emma back was motivation enough for him to try and get back here.” 

“But we still haven’t seen the Dark One alive,” Emma reminds her. 

“We have to assume he could be up to something, love. His reaction was… frightening. Even if he isn’t behind the curse, we should still watch out for him.” 

Emma nods, trying her hardest to relax into the couch she’s on. It’s not lost on Killian that this is the very couch that he and Emma nearly defiled a few weeks back. It’s also not lost on him that they haven't had another opportunity like that since. “It’s just strange.” Emma finally says. “We’ve been back for a month and nothing has happened. If someone cast the curse for a reason, why wouldn't they have acted on that reason by now?”

“I still feel dreadful whenever I think of Rumple,” Belle says inauspiciously. 

“But how can you feel this way without having any memories from before the curse?” Snow asks. 

Belle shugs helplessly. “I don't know. I can’t describe it. It’s just that whenever I think about finding him, I feel like something is wrong. I hate feeling that way about him, but...” 

“It’s alright, lass. We’ll sort this out eventually.” 

“Hook, maybe you can stay with Belle during the day so she feels safe.” He turns towards Emma and raises a brow in surprise.

“You do know he tried to kill me, right?” 

“Well,” he starts somewhat defensively, shifting his body so that he’s facing Emma completely and turning his head so that he can look at Belle as he speaks. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

“Twice?”

Bloody hell. “Sorry…” 

Emma groans. “It’s fine. We’ll figure this out and everything will be fine. For now, I think we’ve done all that we can. Robin still hasn’t found his guy, and we still haven't found Gold, or anything else about the curse, so I guess it’s just a waiting game.”

“I can continue to do research, but it’s as you said, Emma. A waiting game.” 

“Emma’s right,” David pipes in. “There's only so much we can do at this point. For now, I say we enjoy our time getting to know our families again.” 

Snow smiles at this, rubbing her hand along her swollen belly in her seat. “I’ve been meaning to say something about that, actually. I think we should all have dinner together, to celebrate being back with Emma and Henry, and meeting Corrine.” Leave it to the queen to want to throw some sort of ostentatious gathering in the midst of a crisis. 

~~~~

Emma spends the morning with Corrine at the park, saying that she want to get more time in with her. Lately, she’s been doing so much searching that she’s hardly been around during the day, and he can see that wearing on her. She wants to take Henry as well, but he’s uninterested in spending yet another day at the playground, so Killian elects to take him back to the pier. Maybe this time they can actually do what they set out to do without being interrupted. 

They have a grand time all day, checking on the boats and ships in the marina, discussing what ship is best for what usage, and talking about Killian’s past as a naval officer. He’s a bit surprised to find Henry as interested as he is, although it makes sense when he thinks back to their time together on their way back from Neverland. 

Killian didn’t spend the entire journey fornicating with Emma; that was only one small, heavenly slice of what went on on his ship. The rest of the time, he captained the Jolly Roger and witnessed as Henry’s fascination grew. At the time, he hasn’t noticed, but the more he looks back on the experience, the more he recalls vapid glares from Baelfire as he taught Henry how to steer and navigate. 

As the day fades from afternoon to evening and the sun begins to set behind the horizon, they make their way off of the pier, meaning to head to Queen Snow’s loft for her celebratory dinner, but something catches the lad’s eye. 

“I just have to run in here really quick,” he says, pointing towards Mr. Gold’s Pawnbroker and Antiquities Dealer. 

“What’s so important in there, lad?” he asks, trying not to sway him either way but really, really wanting to. 

“I wanna get something for my mom. Plus, isn’t she always hanging out with the lady who owns the place? She should know what she likes. Just wait out here, okay? I won't be long— I think I already know what I want to get her.” 

Killian sighs, unsure of what to say. Anything he does say in objection to Henry getting his mother a thoughtful gift from a demon’s pawnshop would sound suspicious. “Alright, lad. Just… be quick, alright? I’ll just be here when you’re finished.” 

Henry grins up at him, and Killian can't help but return it at the thought of the two of them finally getting along. He supposes a heart to heart was the best plan he could have hatched. He runs into the store, and Killian sits at the bench once he hears the door’s bell ring. 

He sits quietly for a few moments, contemplating the changes he’s gone through in the last few weeks. Not only has he become a father to a small lass, but he also sees himself as something of a father figure to Henry as well. Despite the fact that he and his mother may fight with him on this assumption, he wants to be there for Henry as much as he possibly can. He thinks, also, of the curse and who may have cast it. As much as he knows that whoever did so may have had nefarious intentions, he must admit that he’s somewhat grateful for it. It’s given him the opportunity to get back to Emma and Henry and to meet his daughter. 

His thoughts are flowing easily for a few minutes before they're interrupted suddenly by the sharp blow to his head and the cloudy blackness blurring over his vision. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh!! Hope everyone enjoyed some captain cobra moments :)


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is written and I’m in denial about my semester becoming super busy, so I figured why not post all of this at once? Expect an update every day this week 😏

Emma hasn’t had a family dinner since she was fifteen. She doesn’t even know if that counts, either, since it wasn’t really her family and her criminal best friend ended up crashing, so she’s excited to have one now. Sure, she, Henry, and Corrine had dinner together almost every night, but she’s excited to have a meal with her parents and her friends and her… Killian. 

Corrine’s sitting in the little high chair that dad put together for her and couldn’t be happier. Of course, the chair is meant for their new baby, due to arrive any day, but they graciously let Corrine use it for now. She taps away at the tray with the wooden spoons that Emma’s mother gave to her and her smile can be seen from across the loft. Killian’s bright, up-to-no-good smile. 

Henry finally arrives a while later, once dinner's almost ready, but he’s alone. “Where’s Ho-Killian?” she asks him, and he shrugs. 

“Don’t know, I thought he would’ve been here.”

She pinches her brows together and moves towards him. “He wasn’t with you this whole time?” 

Henry shrugs casually and gets a bottle of water from the fridge. “After I got out of the pawnshop he was gone, so I just figured he came back here instead of waiting for me.” 

“He let you go to Gold’s?!”

He eyes his mother suspiciously before answering, “yeah… I was looking for a birthday gift for you.”

She shakes her head. Where the hell could he be now? There’s no way he just left Henry to fend for himself, and there’s no way he casually let him into Gold’s shop without trying to stop him or at least waiting for him. 

Her concerns are put to rest quickly and temporarily, though, as he walks into the loft moments later with a bump forming on the side of his head. 

“What the hell happened to you?” she asks once he’s entered. 

Corrine shouts, “Duddy!” from her seat and starts to wiggle, and David lets her out while suspiciously eyeing Hook. 

“Ah,” he says with a strange smile. “I must’ve bruised myself at the pier earlier. Apologies for my lateness.” Corrine runs up to him, but doesn’t say her signature line and turns around, heading towards Henry. Killian never looked down.

“Why did you leave Henry?” she demands. His face is tight and his body appears rigid. 

“Figured the lad was fine on his own.”

She lets her mouth hang open. 

“Duddy?” Corrine asks Henry, and he looks to Emma for help in answering. 

“What do you mean, Corrine? Killian’s right there.” 

She turns back to Hook and sees the tension in his body getting stronger. His hands are shaking. “It’s me, lass,” he says. 

Corrine won’t go to him, though. She goes to Emma and requests to be picked up, and when Emma walks her over to Killian, she squirms away. 

“It’s alright,” he says, and Emma sees his eyes watering and his cheeks going red. 

Dinner is horribly awkward. She can’t look at Killian. 

Something is wrong. 

~~~~

When they get back to Granny’s, Emma has to fight Corrine to go to sleep. She’s crying harder than she has in a while, and Emma’s heart nearly breaks. Over the last few weeks, Hook has taken to helping her put Corrine down, and typically reads or tells her a story as she drifts off. But tonight, she cries as he stands in the doorway and only lets Emma rock her to sleep once he leaves the room. 

When she finally comes out to the lobby where he’s waiting for her on the couch, she notes the blankness in his face. It’s as if his emotions have been stripped from him. The Killian she knows would have been heartbroken by Corrine’s response to him, but this man is completely flat. “Finally got her down,” she says as he stands from the couch. 

“Very good.” His voice is robotic. 

“Killian,” she says to him, stopping him in his tracks towards his room and taking his cheek in her left hand. “What’s wrong? You are acting strange.” 

He smiles at her, but it doesn't reach his eyes. It barely reaches his mouth. “Nothing. I’m fine.” She strokes her hand along his face for a moment and he grabs it in his, squeezing too tightly. He starts breathing too heavily. “I’m leaving.”

“ _ What? _ ” Emma hisses out. 

“Aye,” he says, squeezing harder as his eyes begin to water again. “I don’t want this life. I’m a pirate, always have been, always will be.”

“Killian,” she tries, but he interrupts. 

“I’ve no place here, raising another man’s child.” 

She balks at him, her mouth hanging open and her fingers practically going numb in response to his grip on her wrist. His hand is shaking again, and she thinks she sees a tear forming in the corner of his eye. 

“Right,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “You're just a pirate. What reason could you possibly have to stay?” 

He nods stiffly and his voice breaks as he says, “aye.” 

She pulls her hand from his and almost feels a tear escape her own eye as she realizes what’s happened. It isn’t difficult to put the pieces together; what’s difficult is accepting that this is a reality. 

She moves away from him and finds a piece of wood on the floor near the fireplace, making as though she’s going to put it in. When he turns, because there seems to be a part of him that doesn’t truly want to go, she makes her way towards him quickly and knocks him over the head with it. 

~~~~

“We have to find the book. Now,” she says as she enters the loft. “Hook’s handcuffed to the bed for now but he could break out. And don't even ask me how I got him in there because I don't want to relive it.” 

“Emma,” her mom starts, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What’s happening?” 

“Do you see it?” she asks as her father makes his way into the closet for another box. 

“Emma.” 

“Someone took his heart.” She hates hearing the thickness of her own voice as she chokes the words out. 

Mary Margaret pinches her brows together and squeezes Emma’s shoulder once more. “How do you know?” 

“Didn’t you see him tonight?” she asks exasperatedly. “That wasn’t Hook.” 

“You're right, he was acting strange, but are we sure that’s because someone took his heart?” 

Emma feels like she could cry. She hates it. “You should've seen him with--” she nearly chokes, “with Corrine tonight. It was like he didn’t even know her. And she  _ knows _ there’s something wrong. She wouldn’t stop crying.” 

David comes out of the closet with a box of sweaters and places it on the bed. “She did refuse to go to him tonight. And it was like he was… shut off.” 

“Who would have done this? Do you think the person who cast the curse is behind it?” Mary Margaret asks.

“I don't know who or how, but I have a pretty good guess that it has something to do with Neal finding out about Corrine earlier.” 

“If you think Neal took Hook’s heart…”

“That means he has to have magic,” David finishes.  _ Shit. _

Her mother rummages through a box, rationalizing that this is where she found the book the last time, and huffs exasperatedly as she pushes the box aside towards Emma. She's nearly in tears as she desperately grabs for the same box her mother just searched, moving sweaters out of the way before she sees it. 

_ Once Upon A Time _ , it says, bold and proud across the plain brown cover. 

Emma huffs out a sigh of relief, perhaps something closer to a sob, and pulls the book out of its hiding place. She breathes a curse under her breath and opens the pages, seeing the same illustrations and words that she’s become used to over the years. 

“I checked that one,” Snow says slowly, looking again. 

“The book makes itself known to the person who needs it.” David’s rationalization makes complete sense to Emma. 

For a split second, before she put the pieces together in her head and figured out that Killian didn’t have his heart, she thought her own heart was going to shatter. She believed him, even if just for a second, when he said he was leaving. When he said that there was nothing for him in this life. She knows that isn’t true, but a part of her was almost expecting him to say it all this time. He’s said before that with her and Corrine and Henry, he has  _ everything _ , and she’s trying her hardest to trust that he’s telling the truth. 

The thought of losing him now nearly breaks her. 

“I have to go back to him,” she says weakly. “I can’t lose him now; I can't do that to Corrine. Now that she has her dad…”

“I know, Emma. We’ll help you,” her mother consoles. 

“Maybe now that we have the book, we can break this damn curse,” David suggests.

“Let your father go with you.” Snow nods at her. “Neal is unpredictable in some ways, but at this point, I think we can basically guarantee that he could go off the rails at any second.” 

“If he’s behind this, I think it’s safe to say he’s already gone off the rails,” David says. 

~~~~

David called his new friend Robin for backup, and he meets them at Granny’s. Emma half expects him to bring some others from his brigade of Merry Men, but he arrives alone with only his bow and arrow. 

When the three of them get there, the kids are blessedly still sleeping, but Hook is gone. 

“ _ Fuck!”  _ Emma says under her breath, perhaps too loudly, and kicks a table aside and thrusting her hands into her hair. She slinks to the ground at the sight of the empty bed, her head falling into her hands. “What are we gonna do?”

David walks over to her and squats down to her level, running a hand over her back. “We’re gonna find him.” 

She takes in a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “He could be in danger. We  _ have _ to find him.” 

“Emma, do you really think Neal could be behind this?” She sniffles pathetically, nodding her head. “Because I’m pretty sure Gold has a cabin near the edge of town. It’s possible he could have gone there.” 

“It’s true, mate, some of the men and I located the cabin during our search for Walsh.” 

She freezes at Robin’s words _.  _ “ _ What  _ did you just say?” she asks with her voice low and more threatening than she truly intended. 

“Uh,” Robin starts, backing away slightly. “I said that, during our search, we came across this cabin. 

“Your search… for  _ Walsh? _ ” 

“That’s right, your highness. One of our Merry Men, though we haven't seen him since being cursed here.”

She wants to throw up. She’s willing to bet that, if they had their memories, the Merry Men wouldn't recall having seen Walsh in the Enchanted Forest much either. Because he was in Manhattan, manipulating and assaulting  _ her. _

“Oh, my god,” she nearly whispers, standing from her place on the ground quickly as she puts the pieces of this fucked up puzzle together. “We have to go.  _ Now.”  _

~~~~

They drive in near silence for miles. Emma’s still as the changing leaves pass her by and her thoughts drive her wild. She isn’t sure that they’ll find Killian in Gold’s cabin, but her gut is telling her that Neal is behind this. Neal is behind all of this. Walsh was sent to Manhattan when Pan’s curse took over to spy on her. She isn't sure how Neal convinced a Merry Man to get behind this, but she is certain that her conniving ex hasn’t actually learned a thing from his past mistakes. And now he’s taking his inability to be with her and Henry out on Killian.

Killian has been through a lot, she’s learned. From a young age, he’s dealt with a type of loss and pain that doesn't seem to let up, no matter what he does. He tried to change his life and become a man of honor, but he was met still with more loss and pain that drove him to piracy. He told her one dark night on the couch at Granny’s how the Dark One murdered his first love right in front of him, taking his hand to rub salt in the wound, and how that stirred his centuries long quest for revenge. He also told her that when he met his daughter, he felt his lust for revenge melt away right before his eyes. The things he’s done in his past are difficult to excuse, but the work he’s done to change since he’s met his daughter is erasing the marks against him. 

Captain Hook is retired. Killian Jones is a good man who deserves more than having his heart ripped out and crushed by Emma’s vengeful ex.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” David finally says, stirring her from her thoughts. She looks up at him from the passenger’s seat and pinches her brows. “I know this can’t be easy on you. When you came back to us a few weeks ago and told us you had a baby… I’ll admit, I was angry at first. I was furious to learn that Hook had…” he takes a deep breath in. “But to see him raising her, and to see how dedicated he is to being in her life and yours, he’s changing my mind. He’s changed.” 

She nods and feels her eyes stinging again. She’s never known herself to be so emotional, especially over a man (at least since the last time…), but she can’t help but feel responsible for what’s happening to Hook. “I know. I was surprised too, but at the same time, I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” 

She smiles. It’s not lost on her that Robin is still sitting in the back seat, but she doesn’t care. “Just… when he first came to get me in New York, I knew something was off before I even had my memories back. A part of me trusted him then. And then when I took the potion and we were ready to head back here… I dont know what it was, but you should've seen the way Corrine ran to him. It was almost like it was instinctual. She  _ knew _ who he was.” 

David nods as he focuses on the road before him. “Kids are smart like that, I guess.” 

“Yeah. And she clearly loves him so much, but tonight, she wouldn’t go anywhere near him.” 

“It is amazing,” he starts, glancing at her as he pulls the truck off towards the woods, “how easily she seems to have warmed up to him.” 

She nods and brushes her hand under her eye, trying and failing to hide the tear that’s fallen. “I can’t let anything happen to him because it will crush her. She finally has her dad in her life, and I  _ know _ he wants to be in hers, and I can't ruin that.” 

“Emma,” he starts. They finally pull up to the cabin and he parks the car. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?”

“Neal wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn't for me.” Her voice is weak and wrought with anxiety and fear. 

“No, Neal has clearly lost it. Something must've happened to him during the missing two years, because he’s snapped. This is all on him, not you.” 

“I’m surprised you're actually helping Hook,” she says with a pathetic laugh. 

“Look, I may not be his biggest fan, but I am yours. And I'm Henry’s and Corrine’s too. Hook falls into that dynamic and I can’t fight that. I just want you all to be happy, and if he makes you happy… well, I’ll do anything to defend your happiness, Emma.” 

She finally finds it in herself to look at him, her bottom lip pouting out and shaking slightly as she struggles to keep her emotions in check. She is  _ not _ an emotional person. But the person she… feels something for… is in trouble and she’s part of the reason why, and she struggles to move past that no matter what her father tells her. “Thanks, dad,” she finally says.

They leave the vehicle finally and creep quietly through the black night towards the cabin window, peeking inside to be met with shock and horror. The cabin appears to be riddled with potions and spells. Neal never had magic, so there’s only one truly logical explanation for all of this: the Dark One is alive. “I don't see anyone,” she whispers into the dark.

“Doesn't mean no one’s here,” Robin whispers back, and she nods. If there’s one thing she knows, it’s how to hide. 

They walk around to the back of the house and still see nothing, but this isn’t so surprising; they didn’t want to risk being caught, so they ditched their flashlights. She’s happy to have Robin with them because at least one of them knows how to navigate through the trees. It isn’t until they’re nearing the forest behind the cabin that they hear the voices. 

“...my insurance policy clearly worked. She has no idea, does she, pirate?” 

_ Neal.  _

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Have you forgotten that she’s much smarter than you?” 

Hook shouts in pain. 

“You idiot. I may not actually have magic but that doesn’t mean I can't kill you with this.” 

“Just  _ do it  _ then _ ,”  _ he spits in return, and Emma’s heart starts thumping so violently that it hurts. 

They make their way through a few trees until they see the soft glow of a fire, just beyond the wishing well. Whatever Neal plans on doing, she thinks he must be planning on impacting the whole town. 

“I’d love to, but I think I’d rather make you suffer some more first.” 

“How much more suffering do you think you can put me through, mate?” Hook is tied to a tree a few yards away from the well and Neal is standing several feet from him next to the fire. In the glowing light, she sees that the bruise on his head has gotten uglier, and he’s got a few new ones on top of the one she likely gave him. His lip is split and bleeding, as is his nose, and his left eye is swollen nearly shut. 

The three of them crouch behind a fallen tree and she sees Neal holding Hook’s glowing heart in his right hand and the Dark One’s dagger in his left.  _ Shit. _ She knew it. 

“I’m gonna make you  _ watch _ ,” he spits with an evil smile slinking across his face, “as I steal everything you love and destroy your life, just like what you did to me.  _ Then _ I’ll kill you. She feels panic settling over her, her body going hot and her hands shaking. She feels a heat in the pit of her stomach that she’s only felt a few times before, and she knows what must be about to happen. Neal holds up the dagger in front of his face and shouts commandingly, “Dark One—” 

But she doesn't allow him to finish his command. She doesn’t even think before she stands from her hiding spot, feeling her father tug on her hand as she raises it in front of her. Hook shouts, “no!” before she digs into the pit of her stomach for the glowing white light, forcing it to blast out of her palms and straight into Neal. 


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr earlier, I said “if you vote I’ll post chapter 6 early.” Well, someone told me they voted, and so here we are.

He’s going to die. There isn't a single doubt in his mind that Killian Jones’ life ends tonight. 

Baelfire is not Neal; Neal is not Baelfire. They are different people. One was a caring and passionate boy who lost his way after his parents left him. The other is a deranged, aggrieved man who thinks himself the victim of someone else’s adversity. 

Now, he means to kill Killian. He means to take his heart in his hand and crush it just as his father had done his mother’s. “I’m gonna make you  _ watch _ ,” he tells him. He means now to make Killian suffer. He means now to make him watch as his love and her children forget about him. As everyone he’s ever known forgets about him. He means now to make him watch as he coerces Emma into being with him. He wants to make the three of them a family.

What will happen to Corrine? He doubts that Neal will take her in as his own as Killian wishes to do with Henry.

He loves Corrine more than he’s ever loved anyone or anything. He never thought he would be able to move past his loss of Milah, but the love he feels for his child is so far beyond any love he’s ever felt before. He felt that love for her even without his heart, and it very nearly killed him to see that she knew he wasn’t really there with her. 

He’s had over two years to fall in love with Emma. He knew he felt something for her the moment she put that damn knife up to his throat and accused him of lying. The others she was with had known him for months as he disguised himself as a blacksmith, and she found him out in a matter of minutes. She’s the smartest person he knows. 

So why she chooses now to behave absolutely foolishly, he cannot comprehend. 

He sees her suddenly, her golden hair shining in the pitch black night as she stands from behind a fallen tree. At first he feels relief, but it’s quickly replaced with dread at the thought of seeing her hurt, or seeing her face as Baelfire kills him. He wants to stop her— her being here is completely daft and Bae could hurt her— but before he can say hardly anything, she’s blasting Bae with a magic more powerful than he’s ever seen before. 

He’s blinded by the light that strikes Baelfire down and keeps him there, his stupefaction perhaps also a result of the multiple blows to the head he’s absorbed today. Before he has a moment to get himself oriented, she’s in front of him stroking his cheek and untying the rope around his torso. “Killian,” she says softly, hugging him close and tight as he’s freed from the tree. 

He feels himself wrapping his arms back around her, but he still struggles with the numbness that his missing heart is causing. “Swan,” he chokes out weakly as she squeezes him. 

“Dad!” she shouts, “get his heart. We have to get him out of here, fast. Robin, help me get him to the truck.” 

“The dagger,” Killian croaks as she pulls him to her side. 

“Got it, let’s go.” 

When they get to the car, Emma attempts to heal Killian’s wounds, but appears to be unable to as her hands shake violently. She looks as though she could break apart at any moment as she turns to face him in her seat, her back to the side window. He wants to yell at her to snap her safety contraption into place, but his mouth doesn't want to cooperate. He feels numb still, and hopes that she puts his damn heart back into his chest sooner rather than later. 

“I can’t heal you,” she starts with a skip to her voice. “I need magic to put your heart back, but I feel spent. I’m sorry, I need to save it up, I think.” 

He nods at her, unable to meet her beautiful, glassy eyes with his own. Without his heart, he feels as though his mind and soul have died, and he’s simply floating around waiting for his body to catch up. 

They arrive at Granny’s quickly, and he assumes David must have been driving with more haste than he should have. Perhaps if Killian could have found it in himself to care, he would have scolded him or reached for the bar above Emma's head. 

Once they’re inside, safely locked behind the door of his rented bedroom, Emma shakes her hands out and jumps up and down in front of him. He knows he would laugh at her if he wasn’t as good as dead. “I’m so sorry,” she says softly as a tear escapes the corner of her eye. “I can’t believe Neal did this to you because of me. I’m so, so sorry.” 

He shakes his head; if he was alive he would argue with her. This isn't her fault, and she has to believe that. She moves towards him and wraps her arms around him tightly before David enters the room, Queen Snow close behind him, and hands her his glowing heart. 

She holds it tenderly in her hands, biting her bottom lip and looking into his eyes. He tries to look back but it's as if his own eyes aren’t working. He can see her, but he knows with certainty that he isn't able to take in all of her beauty. This isn’t the way he should feel when he looks at her. She inhales deeply and thrusts the heart into his ribs with such force that he takes a step backwards and loses his breath. 

When he opens his eyes, he sees her glowing emeralds and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s the first time since his heart was stolen that he thinks he can breathe properly. She’s apologizing again, saying something about doing it quickly and ripping off a… something… but he doesn't hear her. He knows that her parents are both in the room, but he can’t help himself from stepping to Emma, taking the back of her head in his hand and kissing her. She gasps against him, letting him step her back towards the wall adjacent to the door. 

“What the hell just happened?” he hears from the doorway, and when he regrettably breaks away from Emma and turns, he sees Henry. He looks horrified and confused and Killian knows he must have just seen the entirety of what just played out. He saw his mother magically place Killian’s heart back in his chest. “Mom, what’s going on?” 

She breaks away from Killian’s hold despite the fact that he desperately wants to protest and grabs the story book from atop his bed, walking over to Henry. “Do you trust me, kid?” she asks. 

“I mean… yeah, but...” 

“Take this,” she commands, thrusting the book towards him. “Take it, and I swear everything will make sense.” 

Henry has the heart of the truest believer. Even him not having his memories of magic’s existence doesn’t negate that fact. So Killian isn't at all surprised when Henry narrows his eyes at his mother suspiciously and takes the book from her grasp anyway. He watches as the memories fall back into place in Henry’s mind and he states softly, “I remember.”

Emma laughs with him, pulling her son into a tight hug and squeezing him until he protests. When she finally breaks away from Henry, she’s back in front of Killian and hugging him again. He doesn't think anything can split him from her as he buries his nose into her hair until he hears tiny footsteps waddling into the room and he feels his heart stutter. He feels his  _ heart _ . “Duddy!” a bold, squeaky voice calls, and he thinks he could cry. Hell, he is crying. He pulls away from Emma again, happily this time, and grins as he sees his daughter running to him, picking her up into his arms and hugging her tight. 

“I love you,” he breathes, stepping around in circles as he sways with her in his arms. “I love you.”

“Yuh you,” she repeats, and he chokes out a laugh. He rubs his hand over her hair and presses a kiss to her cheek. 

He can’t breathe again, but for a different reason. Something in him has just shifted; he feels so whole in this moment. His breath is knocked from him but it’s as if he doesn’t need it. There's a flash of light surrounding the two of them, a rainbow of colors dancing in his peripheral vision that seems to shock the others in the room as they jump back. When he pulls Corrine’s tiny body away from him slightly and looks into her eyes, she's staring back at him. He hears a soft sob coming from across the room and looks up to see Emma somewhere between a laugh and a cry. 

She hurries over to the two of them and kisses Corrine’s cheek, then kisses Killian again. She presses her head against his chest, under his chin, and whispers against his skin, “you just broke the damn curse; are you kidding me?” 

“Damn,” Corrine repeats, and Killian barks out a laugh alongside David and Snow. Henry’s beside the three of them too, hugging his mother again and taking Corrine from Killian’s arms to spin her playfully. 

True love’s kiss broke the curse. His true love with his daughter broke the curse. 

“Bloody hell,” he breathes out against Emma’s hair, squeezing her tight. 

“Duddy!” 

David asks, “so  _ that’s _ why she calls you that, huh?” and Killian’s heart races. 

~~~~

Emma let’s Corrine stay in Killian’s lap as the group makes themselves comfortable in Granny’s lobby. It’s so late at night that she sleeps easily against his chest, and he’s happy to feel the delicate weight of her upon his beating heart as her chubby fists cling onto his shirt. He only lost it for a few hours, but it was perhaps the worst he’s ever felt, and having it back now is making him ache with the love he has for her. 

The truth is, though he may have his heart physically back inside his chest, it does now and always will belong to his daughter. 

“So, we broke the curse, and that’s great, but… this is bad, Emma.” 

He considers his feelings of bliss effectively eradicated; Emma’s mother’s statement was so ominous that he feels his blood chilling. 

She squeezes his hand, and he knows it’s because her and their daughter broke the curse. Since it happened, she can't seem to stop touching him. “So you have your memories back?” she asks as David finally sits down beside his wife. 

“Yes,” he answers, “and they're not good.”

“Yeah, you guys keep saying that.” 

“First of all,” her father continues, “we didn't send Hook any message via bird.” he stares pointedly at Killian and narrows his eyes. 

“Well, I got one,” he responds, shrugging as much as he can while keeping the child comfortable in his arms. 

“So we should figure out who did that,” Snow answers.

“Right. Well, Neal is obviously the one who cast the curse. My bet is that he used the Dark One to do it, I'm just not sure who he would have sacrificed.”

“Emma,” her mother says, but she continues. 

“I mean, at this point, I think he’d have needed to crush his own heart,” she says with a slight snort and bumps her shoulder into Killian’s. 

“It wasn’t Neal.” 

She cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean? He was obviously behind all this. He cast the curse to get us back, and in the meantime while he was concocting his plan, I’m pretty sure he sent my apparently fake boyfriend to spy on me.” 

“You were seeing someone in New York?” Her father asks. 

“Who cast the damn curse?” Emma finally nearly shouts, drawing everyone’s attention back to the issue at hand. She’s right, they can’t exactly worry about Walsh right now. 

“We did,” Snow says. He feels Emma’s grip on his hand tighten immediately and his heart turns to stone.

“ _ What? _ ” she asks her mother as she draws her brows in tightly. 

“We found out Neal’s plan, and we tried to stop him. But he tricked us, Emma.”

“How did this happen?” Killian wonders. 

David steps in. “Neal told us what happened between the two of you. About how he called the police and set you up. Then he threatened to hurt you and Henry and said the only way we could stop him from doing so was to cast a curse and come save you ourselves.” he inhales deeply before continuing. “We fell for it. He couldn't have cast the curse because, you're right, there was nothing that he loved enough to sacrifice for it.”

“Emma, what did Baelfire do to you?”

She ignores him. “So how did  _ you _ cast it?” 

“Regina,” Snow answers. “I crushed Charming’s heart, and Regina split mine in two and gave us each half. True love, and all that.” 

Emma whispers  _ what the hell  _ under her breath. He doesn't miss the concerned look that crosses over Robin Hood’s face as Snow speaks. 

“So… the Dark One… is he alive, then?” 

“Yes, I mean, I assume so. He must've been helping Neal, but again, he couldn't cast the curse either. He would have had to sacrifice Neal.”

“What does he want?”

“Emma,” Killian says, struggling still to get a word in edgewise. “He wishes to erase your memories. Your’s and Henry’s. He wishes to make the three of you into a family. I believe he plans to use the well in the forest to do so.” 

“The well?” Snow asks. 

“He wants to hurt me. He wants to remove everyone’s memories of me; the whole town.”

“What about the baby?” Emma asks softly, weakly. He holds her tighter and pinches his brows. 

“I won't let anything happen to her, love,” he says as he meets her eyes firmly with his own. 

“My dad did this?” Henry finally asks. He feels Emma stiffen, sees her eyes widen, as if she’s forgotten that he was in the room and listening as everyone admonished his father. 

She takes a breath before she speaks. “I’m sorry, kid. We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of you.” 

“No, I'm not a kid anymore mom. You can't keep trying to protect me from the wrong that everyone in my life is doing.” She nods meekly. He’s never seen her look so small and vulnerable. It hurts. “My dad did this. He wants to hurt us, and Killian and Corrine.” 

“I won't let him, Henry,” Killian tries. He knows his words must mean nothing to the lad, especially after he’s already lost his bloody heart, but he has to say them anyway. 

“I won't either,” David agrees. “None of us will.”

~~~~ 

They choose to sleep. It’s well past midnight, but they haven’t slept, and there’s hardly anything they can do but wait, so they choose sleep. 

Killian gently lays Corrine in her firm crib mattress after he kisses her forehead softly and pulls back, turning to face Emma. Henry has already fallen asleep on the small cot, so they move about the room quietly. Once he’s sure that the baby won't fuss, he moves towards the door to make his way to his own room, but she waves her fingers and the latch locks. 

He pinches his brows and turns to her and is met with her face breaking into a fierce frown and tears springing to her eyes. When he steps over to her, she waves her hands easily and his wounds are healed. Before he can thank her though, more tears break free and he can tell she can’t hold on much longer. “Oh no, love, it’s alright,” he says, but the tears are falling across her cheeks and she lets out a keening sob. 

He has her in his arms in seconds before they’re falling towards the bed and she’s laying atop his chest, clinging her fists to his shirt much like their daughter had done. She sobs once more, then sniffles as she buries her face in his neck above his collarbone. 

“I thought,” she says through her tears, “I thought you were gonna die.” 

He rolls them so that they're on their sides facing one another and pulls her close to him, running his hand along her back soothingly until her breathing steadies. “I’m sorry, love. I’m alright now, though.” 

“Fuck, Killian,” she says pitifully. “I was fine for two years. I raised her just fine on my own. But now that I have you back, the thought of losing you…” 

He kisses her hair and continues to try and console her. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” he feels her intake her breath deeply. “Sleep now, my love. We don't have much time before morning, but I promise I’ll be here when it comes.” 

She drifts quickly; so does he. 

~~~~

He dreams of death and loss and pain. He wakes to the rising sun and is comforted by the golden hair strewn across his face. He’s never spent a night with Emma Swan in his arms, and he doesn't know if he can ever spend a night alone again. 

He’s relieved to see that Henry is still sleeping-- it may have been difficult to explain to him what the hell Killian was doing in his mother’s bed. 

He sneaks off of the creaking mattress as stealthily as he can, crossing the room on his toes until he almost reaches the door but is stopped by a small squeak. 

“Duddy?” she says, and there isn’t a single part of him that could have stopped himself from walking over and picking her up. 

“Shh,” he says, placing a finger over her lips and exiting the room. “We have to be sneaky. Shall we get mummy some hot chocolate and a bear claw?” 

“Up.” 

“You can  _ stay _ up, love, but I’m not putting you down without your shoes on.” 

“Soo?” 

“Shoe,” he says softly and kisses her nose. 

He buys two bear claws and two glazed donuts and waits with her as Ruby makes some hot chocolate. “I missed you, my love,” he says to her before kissing her cheek again. “Can you believe we shared true love’s kiss?” She smacks her lips together by way of blowing him a kiss, as she often does. “I can, because I love you.” 

“You you,” she responds. 

“Aye. Thank you, Ruby,” he says as she slides a tray towards him. “You need to walk back, love, but you best not run, aye? You’ll drop mummy’s breakfast. Daddy can’t hold you and the coffee so you get a bit of freedom.” 

She runs ahead of him, struggling to hold the bag of pastries in front of her without dragging them along the floor. Her hair is ruffling in the air as she cuts through it; Emma likes to put some of the fluffy wisps into a small  _ ponytail _ , as she calls it, during the day, but when she’s just woken up, her mane is wild. 

When they get to the door, he props the coffee tray on his prosthetic and opens the door slowly and quietly before she bursts into the room and they’re met with an anxious looking Emma. 

“Oh,” she breathes out. “Cocoa from my Coco,” she says with a smile as the babe drops the bag on the floor and climbs up onto the bed. She’s very agile and he thinks it’ll do her well on a ship one day. 

“Hot chocolate, love,” he says as he places the cups down and leans towards her. She hums up at him and meets his lips with a soft kiss. Corrine smacks her own lips with the palm of her hand and blows a kiss in their direction. “How lovely, thank you.”

“Did you buy my child a donut?” 

He grins down at her, moving to pick the abandoned bag up off the floor and walking it over to Emma. “Aye, and I got you a bear claw. Though donuts are much better.” 

She rolls her eyes, bumping her shoulder into his as she takes the pastry from him. “I was scared when I woke up,” she practically whispers into the air. 

“I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere, love,” he says as he presses a soft kiss to her shoulder, then rips a small piece of donut away for Corrine. 

“I know, but you weren’t here and I panicked. Then I saw she wasn’t here either…” 

Corrine gobbles the donut down faster than he anticipated, so he tears off another small piece. “I’m sorry. Emma, I’m sorry for everything. For what he made me say to you, for leaving Henry, for everything.” 

“Don’t,” she shakes her head as she tries to swallow the bear claw. “It wasn’t you. I knew it wasn’t. It sucked hearing you say it but… deep down, I knew.” 

He nods, giving Corrine one final piece before polishing off her donut himself and going for his own. Losing a heart is hungry work. Once he’s finished, he pounces on Emma, causing Corrine to jump on the springy mattress and climb on top of them as well. With their fronts pressed together, his weight atop her, and the baby laying across his back, he feels whole. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers against her mouth. 

“Good.” 

She reaches up to kiss him softly, earning a precious  _ ew _ from Corrine, before she wraps her arms around him and starts to tickle her from below. She squeals into Killian's ear but he doesn’t mind. This sound makes him feel whole, too. 

“Your mummy’s kissing me, love, I need your help!” He calls dramatically. 

“Stop kissing, please,” Henry begs from his small cot, rolling over and covering his face with a pillow. 

~~~~

It’s just past sunrise when Killian and Emma arrive at the well with David, Regina, and Robin. Henry begged to come along, but Emma couldn’t bear to put him in harm’s way like that. They have no idea what Neal could do if he sees Henry at this point, and Emma says isn't willing to risk it. Killian agrees whole-heartedly (because he has a heart again). They have almost no plan going into this aside from  _ blast them with magic _ , so the chance of putting Henry in harm's way is far too great. 

They left him and Corrine with Belle this morning because Queen Snow seemed to be only a few minutes away from giving birth, and they didn’t think she needed to care for two other children on top of worrying about her husband going off and fighting her daughter’s ex-boyfriend. 

“Neal,” Emma calls as they make their way closer. “What are you doing?” 

“Hey Ems,” he returns casually, turning from the well and smiling at her. His smile falters immediately and his face clicks in anger when his eyes meet Killian and he says, “Hook. I’m feeling much better after our run-in last night, thanks for asking.” 

“Neal,” Emma says again before Killian can respond. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.” 

“Emma, it’s fine,” he says dismissively. “In a few minutes, everything will be fine and you and me and Henry can move on from this shit.” 

“Neal,” she repeats. Her voice is becoming shorter and more clipped. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Stop what you're doing.” 

“Stand back, Miss Swan,” she hears from behind her. “Let’s get this over with, I need to see my son.” 

Neal scoffs and shouts, “so she can see him and I can’t? She cast a fucking curse and almost kills you and  _ she _ can see him?”

“How could you do this, Neal?” She attempts to change the subject and keep it about him and the mistakes he's making. “How could you think that this is a good idea? What’s going to happen to my daughter in this scenario?” 

He rolls his eyes. The Dark One looks as though he wants to say something, but Neal shoots him a deadly glare. “She has a dad, doesn’t he?” 

“One she won’t remember when your memory curse takes over the town?” she gawks. How can he think that a logical option?

“Emma, let’s roast him so we can leave,” Regina snaps. 

“I’m doing this  _ for you _ , Emma,” he says condescendingly. “Do you think anything that happened over the last two years was a coincidence? I have to say, you move on quick. Just gave birth to another guy’s kid five months before and you go out on a date with Walsh?”

It appears as though she’s about to respond, but she’s cut off. “You know Walsh? Where is he?” Concern is thick in Robin’s voice as he speaks, begging for information. “We hadn’t seen him since the first few days in the Enchanted Forest.” 

“Walsh is your missing Merry Man?” Killian asks, looking at Emma. 

“ _Who is_ _Walsh_?” David damands exasperatedly. 

“Oh, are the pieces starting to fall into place?” Gold interrupts, finally speaking before Neal shoots him another threatening look. He returns it, continuing. “The Merry Man was a test. I sent him as my spy, and as a trial for my portal once I thought I’d gotten one working; he was expendable, so if the portal ripped him to shreds, it was no concern of mine. Of course, it didn’t work, because he couldn’t communicate back to me which meant the magic wasn’t transferring across realms. But at least we had someone on the other side to keep an eye on you and Henry.” The smile he shoots her is spine-chilling as his eyes meet Emma’s from across the woods, and Killian wants nothing more than to wipe it off his face. 

“What kind of a father are you? To help your son do something so heartless?”

“I would do anything for my son. When he found the dagger and summoned me, I knew what I had to do. Everything was going to plan. That is, until the pirate showed up with that damn potion. Honestly, how did you do it? Who sent you the message?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Well, no matter. Once Miss Swan began to believe again, the minimal magic that was keeping Walsh alive after his trip across realms wore off, and he expired with that nasty blow to the head.” 

“It would have been easier if i could have just gone to get you two and given you the potion like I planned, but  _ someone  _ cast the Dark Curse before we could finish making a portal, so my dad suggested that we just make more potion and give the whole town a taste.” 

“You manipulated Snow and me into casting the curse!”

“Insurance,” Baelfire says with a shrug. I was getting antsy. It was starting to seem like the Dark One wasn’t strong enough to make the portal to a land without magic, so I thought I should take matters into my own hands.” 

“Son, I told you I could have done it. I simply needed more time.” 

“I didn’t have more time!” Bae explodes, finally giving in to his anger in an outburst as he turns threateningly to the Crocodile, though Killian wonders what he really could have done without the dagger. 

“You're mad,” Robin says. “You killed a man for no reason and now you want to make Emma forget her own child.”

“She never should have had the damn kid in the first place!” Baelfire shouts. “How the hell could you do that on the ship? After we had  _ just  _ rescued Henry?!”

“Neal!” 

“And you! You tell me you’re backing off so that I can have a chance at being a family with Emma  _ after  _ you fucked her on your ship?”

He knew. All this time, he’s known. He’s probably known about Corrine the whole time, perhaps at least in his subconscious, but the confirmation set him off. 

“Mate, calm down.” 

“Yeah, I think we all need to take a step back and see what we’re doing here,” David agrees. 

“I  _ am  _ calm!” he screams. “I’m calmer than I’ve ever been because I know I’m about to see you  _ suffer,  _ pirate! Papa, do it!”

“Gladly,” Gold says as he holds his hands over the well, but he’s frozen. 

“What are you doing? Cast the curse!”

“I— I’m trying… why can’t I—”

“Because I commanded you not to.” 

~~~~

~~~~

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 7

“Because I commanded you not to.” 

The words tore a hole through Emma’s chest. Her foolish son somehow found his way to the woods and was standing off to the side with the Dark One’s dagger, holding it in front of himself and facing it towards Gold. 

“Henry,” Neal starts, and she wants to scream at him to  _ run, get out of here! _ but she can’t. Her brain has stopped working and her lips won't move. She feels Killian squeezing her arm but she can’t turn away from her child putting himself between her and the fucking Dark One. 

“Get out of here, Henry,” Gold says. 

“We’re not going anywhere, Rumple.” 

Belle materializes behind Henry and Emma wants to explode.  _ Where the hell is Corrine, if the two of them are here?! _

“Belle, what are you doing?” 

“You know why I’m here, Rumple. I’m not letting you steal this town’s memories just because you think it would bring me back to you.” 

“No, no. That's not what I'm doing. I’m doing this for my son.” 

She shakes her head and steps in front of Henry, who’s still wielding the dagger threateningly. He refuses to turn around towards Emma, which means she’s unable to reach out and grab for him. She’s worried that if she moves from this spot, Neal just might kill her. 

“I left you, in the Enchanted Forest. I didn’t remember doing it, but I did it. And now you're here, doing the exact thing that I left you for doing!”

“Belle,” Neal tries, but she shoots him a threatening look. 

“What you’re doing is selfish and dangerous. Neal, Emma’s clearly made her choice, and you need to accept that. If you truly love her like you say you do, you’d accept that.” 

“I’m doing this for her; for us!”

“You’re endangering your son and her daughter. That’s not love, Neal. I should’ve seen a long time ago that wanting to control and manipulate someone isn’t the same as loving someone.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Belle!” Gold tries. 

“I can’t believe I was wrong about you all this time, Rumple. Your heart really is rotten, isn’t it?” He doesn't have a chance to answer. “Henry, the dagger, if you please,” she says, taking it from him as Emma breathes a sigh of relief. “Rumple, I want you to transport Neal to a cell in the sheriff’s station, and then you’re going to take us to the town line. We need to be alone for what comes next.” 

They disappear in a cloud of red smoke. Emma’s hesitant to believe that this is all over, but the three of them are gone and Henry is standing safe and dagger-less a few feet away from her. “Henry,” she says, hating the worry laced through her tone. 

“Mom,” he calls with a smile as he runs for her, throwing himself into her waiting arms. 

“What the hell were you thinking?! You could’ve been seriously hurt! Where’s your sister?”

“With grandma—”

“Henry,” Regina interrupts. Emma sighs, wanting nothing more than to continue to hug her son but accepting the fact that her life isn’t that simple. He turns towards her voice and his face is alight once again. 

“Mom!” he calls, running towards her for an emotional reunion. 

Rather than watch the two of them together, she turns towards Killian and smiles. He looks down to her and takes her hand in his, squeezing gently. 

“Well, Swan, I do believe—”

“We’ve gotta go,” David calls as he tucks his phone into his back pocket. “Robin, can you make sure Neal is where he’s supposed to be? Emma, you’ve gotta come with me. Mary Margaret just went to the hospital and had to bring Corrine with her.”

“The baby?” she asks, pulling Killian along with her toward her father’s truck. 

“He or she is on their way.”

~~~~

Henry rides to the hospital with Regina in Gold’s car. Emma’s honestly a bit surprised that Regina is even bothering coming to the hospital, until she pulls up to the doors, drops Henry off, and pulls away again. Typical. 

“Your mom didn’t want to come in?” Emma asks him, and he shrugs. 

“Something about family bonding or whatever. It’s okay.” 

They walk into the lobby and see Corrine sitting happily with Ruby, Tink on the other side of the coffee table and rolling a small ball towards her as she squeals with laughter. She hears Ruby gasp  _ who’s that? _ before Corrine whips around and starts running towards her parents and brother as fast as her fat little legs can carry her. 

“Hello, my love,” Killian says as he scoops her up, making a grunt as if his body is protesting. What a dad. 

“Hi,” she says once she’s up. “Ball.” She holds up the small green ball in Killian’s face, making him back away with a laugh. 

“You’re playing ball with Ruby? And…” he turns, cocking his head, “Tink.”

“Hi, Hook.” 

“Curse is broken,” Ruby says by way of explanation. “Turns out you two weren’t the only ones getting it on after Neverland.”

“Ah,” he says with a blush, and Emma’s smiling until she hears Henry speak up. 

“What does that mean?” 

Ruby shoots them all a wolfish grin. 

Prince Oliver Leopold is born mere hours after they arrived at the hospital; a healthy, happy boy who somewhat resembles his niece and nephew but has his mother’s bright green eyes. 

Emma holds her baby brother and swoons at his plump lips and swollen eyes and rosy cheeks and before she knows it, she has baby fever, dammit. It’s worse when Killian takes the baby from her at David’s insistence and starts cooing.  _ Captain Hook _ is  _ cooing  _ at a  _ baby.  _

Corrine won’t stop saying  _ baby _ . It’s so adorable. She wants to hold her new uncle (Emma won’t ever get used to that), but refuses any help and would definitely forget to support his head, so a tantrum ensues, naturally. Killian hands the baby back to his mother and takes Corrine out to the hall, because apparently he’s already become an expert parent and handles tantrums flawlessly. 

When she leaves the room a few minutes later to check on things, she finds them in the waiting room, Corrine on Killian’s lap with her thumb shoved in her mouth while he holds his phone in front of her. Emma rolls her eyes. 

“We should probably try something aside from handing her a phone whenever she freaks out,” she reasons to him with a smile. 

“Probably, but this always works so well. Plus, it’s rather catchy.” 

When she gets closer, she sees that he’s playing a One Direction music video. Corrine is so fully engrossed that she’s barely dancing, just staring into the screen and bopping her free fist up and down slightly. “You're whipped,” she says to him with a snort as he smiles softly. 

“Not since I was a lad.”  _ Shit, _ she thinks, her face dropping.  _ Poor choice of words _ . 

“I’m sorry,” she says hesitantly. “I didn’t think before I said that, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s alright, love,” he says with the same smile. 

“Yuh you, yuh you momma,” Corrine says with a cheeky grin shot Emma’s way.

“I love you, too,” she returns. 

“Yuh you, duddy.” 

He leans down to her and kisses her cheek tenderly, chuckling lightly. “I love you, too, darling.” 

She tries to say  _ darling _ but it doesn’t come out quite right as she struggles with her  _ L _ s. It’s cute either way, and she’s still the smartest baby around. 

“I think this one is overdue for a nap. Care to tag along?” she asks as Corrine reaches up for her and she scoops her up. They’ve barely eaten or slept today, so she’s surprised Corrine is even still functioning.

“Sure.” Killian stands, locking his phone and tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans like a real twenty first century man. 

~~~~

Henry asks to go to the sheriff’s station on their way back to Granny’s. Emma isn’t sure what he’s going to say to his father, but she assumes he’s about to get an earful from a rightfully angry thirteen-year-old. 

Henry gained his memories back, but his old, cursed ones remained. This means that, while he finally remembers who he really is, he also remembers the story Emma gave him about his father. The reason he was abandoned is clear in his head, along with the betrayal that comes with almost having his memories wiped again and his sister removed from his life at the hands of the same man. 

Safe to say, Henry is pissed. 

Killian offers to go into the station with him and he accepts, as long as Killian promises not to listen in. Emma’s heart is racing the entire time they’re gone, but Corrine’s soft snores and gentle kicks to the seat in front of her keep her mind somewhat at ease for the ten minutes that they’re inside. 

When they emerge from the building, she notes that they're both looking down as they walk to the car with somber looks on their faces. She wants to ask what they talked about, but she knows Henry would rather not talk about it, so when they get into the car, she drives towards the inn silently. 

Henry decides to take a nap as well, so Emma puts Corrine in her crib and shoots him a gentle smile before grabbing the monitor and leaving the room to cross the hall towards Killian’s door. 

“Hi,” he says as she enters, glancing up from the book he was reading on his bed.

“Hey.” 

“Alright?” she shrugs, contemplatively standing before him before crossing the room and taking a seat on the other side of the bed. He closes his book and crosses his ankles before shifting so that he can face her. 

“Weird day.” 

“I’ll say,” he chuckles. “Would you like to lie down, Swan?”

She shrugs again. “I would, but I'm scared to go to sleep. We still haven’t seen Belle, so we don't know what happened to Gold.” 

“Aye,” he agrees with a sigh. “But I think I trust her to make the right decision in that regard.” 

“She’s taken him back countless times before, though.” 

“It’s a complicated relationship, love. She said something about having left him when they were in the Enchanted Forest, and she’s obviously still angry.” 

“Yeah.” She sighs deeply, sinking a bit further into the mattress as he places his arm on a pillow behind her back. 

“Lie down, love. You're exhausted; I’ll stay up and make sure nothing goes awry.” 

She sticks her lips out in a pout of contemplation, but the heat of his arm behind her neck is tempting along with the memory of his body shaped around hers during the night. “You’ll stay here the entire time? Unless Corrine wakes up?” 

“Promise.” She nods at him, scooting herself down so that she’s lying with her head on his chest and her arm slung across his waist. She takes a moment before she hitches her ankle up and over his own, breathing heavily as she feels her body begin to relax. “Swan?” he says softly. 

“Hmm?”

“Can you tell me what Baelfire did to you? What were your parents talking about?”

She tenses in his arms, squeezing her fist around his shirt until her knuckles are white. “He, uh, he left me. He betrayed me. Before we were together, he stole some watches and hid them, and then I went to go get them because he had wanted posters floating around. He went to fence the watches and when I met him afterwards, the police picked me up. He had given me a watch as a gift, and that was all the evidence they needed. Turns out he was the one who called the cops.” 

“Bloody hell.” His hand runs along her spine with a comforting pressure as she relives one of her worst moments. 

“Turns out August told him I was destined to be the Savior and he had to leave me, but the decision to call the cops was all him. So I went to jail for eleven months and that’s where I had Henry.” 

“I’m sorry, Swan. That’s awful.” His voice is soft as it rumbles through the soft afternoon light in the room

“I’ve had a lot of time to get past it,” she shrugs

He nods against her hair and she revels in the gentle squeeze he gives her, the compression against her chest soothing her nerves.

“Swan,” he says again, and she lets out a breathy chuckle. 

“Yeah?” 

“What does whipped mean, in that context?”

She wants to groan, still disgusted with herself for even saying it, but she answers anyway. “It means she has you wrapped around her tiny little finger. I’m pretty sure she could convince you to do anything for her without so much as blinking.”

He laughs. “You’re probably right.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, and she thinks she might fall asleep, but something stops her and makes her speak. 

“She loves you so much,” she says after a few moments. 

“Aye, I love her as well.” 

“She needs you in her life, you know.” 

He intakes a breath and she thinks she may feel the ghost of his lips pressing into her hair. “I need her, too,” he says softly. 

She nods her head against his chest and takes in the scent of leather and sea and rum. He may have traded in his leather slacks for jeans, but he still smells the same, and she’s relieved. “That’s why… that’s why we’re staying here.” 

She feels his body freeze as his arm tightens around her and his breath hitches in his throat. “Aye?” 

“Mhmm. After everything, I just… I want to be close to my family. I almost lost them again today, even though a part of me still doesn't believe that Neal would do that, but… still.” 

“I have trouble believing it myself.” 

“Yeah. But Corrine likes it here. Henry obviously does too, and as much as it pains me to say, his  _ mother _ is here. And... you're here.” 

He rolls them over so that she’s on her side and he’s facing her before he takes his hand and runs it along her cheek gently. “I would've gone with her. With you.” 

“I would've let you. But I'd rather stay put.” 

He hums out a soft laugh, one that says  _ I can’t believe this is happening _ , then touches his index finger along her brow and down the side of her face before he reaches his hand behind her head and pulls the two of them together in a soft, warm kiss. 

She kisses him back instantaneously, swiping her tongue out against his soft lips as a sigh escapes her mouth. She feels so relaxed in his arms, and the feeling of him gently massaging her lips with his own and his fingers stroking against her scalp with gentle pressure is lulling her back into the sense of calm that she’s been missing. She thinks she could get really turned on if she lets herself, but for now, the chaste, gentle kisses relax her into a state of bliss. 

She pulls away from the unexpected kiss after a few moments and sighs through her nose, pressing their foreheads together and biting her bottom lip. “I’m glad you have your heart back,” she says after a moment. “It probably wouldn't have been very fun kissing a heartless Killian.” 

“I think I still would have had fun kissing you even without a heart.” 

She hums out a laugh. “Yeah, but this is much better. Are you okay? After the whole heart thing?”

“Aye, I’ve been through dire straits before, nothing I couldn’t handle.” 

“Right,” she laughs before pressing her body close to his and snuggling her head into his chest. “Can you tell me what happened?” 

He clears his throat. “Neal must've knocked me out. Or it was the Crocodile, I'm not sure. But I woke up in the cabin surrounded by potions and spells and other nefarious things and knew something was wrong.” 

“That’s where they were making the memory potion.” 

“Aye,” he confirms. “Neal told me his plan, then he sent me back to the loft for dinner without my heart so that he could control me. He wanted to see me suffer and lose everything I hold dear. I believe the Dark One must've enchanted his hand somehow and that’s how he was able to control me.” 

“What a bastard. I can't wrap my head about it.” He hums softly in agreement. “What was it like? Not having it, I mean.”

He’s still and quiet as he takes in a breath, then answers, “it’s like I was dead. I was so numb and empty, I couldn’t feel anything but pain and fear. But when you put it back, love, I’ve never felt better.” 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Picturing the way he must have felt causes Emma near-physical pain “That sounds awful.”

He changes the subject away from his suffering easily. “May I ask you something else?” she nods against him. “When did you know? That it wasn’t me?” 

She shrugs, the painful memories of last night flooding back into her mind. “Before you even got there I knew something was wrong. Henry said you left him alone at Gold’s and I knew you wouldn’t do that. And during dinner, Corrine refused to even look at you because she’s a smart baby and  _ she  _ knew something wasn’t right. But it was really clear after dinner when you said you were leaving.” She nearly chokes on the words as they leave her lips. 

“You have to know how hard I tried to not say it.” 

She nods, thinking back to the tears in his eyes and the tight grip he had on her wrist. “I do know, I saw it. You were fighting him.” 

“Aye, I was,” he whispers. 

“You were doing it for your family.” 

His grip on her tightens still and he presses another kiss to the crown of her head before he says, “that I was, love.” 

~~~~

Despite no longer living in a magical forest over which he reigns as king, Emma’s father chooses to have a small ceremony to celebrate the birth of his son. As strange as it is to be 30 years older than her brother, and for his niece and nephew to be older than him, Emma happily attends the small gathering hosted at Granny’s once everyone has finally woken up from their naps. Their sleep schedules are going to be completely messed up for the rest of the week, but that’s something she’ll just have to deal with. 

When Corrine, Henry, Killian, and Emma finally find their way down to the diner, the party is in full swing. Emma doesn’t miss Killian playfully swiping a donut from Ruby’s tray, giving a little piece to Corrine and finishing the rest himself. She could scold him for feeding her sweets before dinner, but seeing them together and seeing her back to her normal playful self with him makes her heart swell. 

She catches Belle at the counter and hops into a stool beside her. “Thanks for your help today.” 

“Oh, of course.” 

“What, uh,” she starts again, contemplating whether or not it’s logical to start this conversation. “What happened to Gold?” 

She purses her lips and looks down. “I sent him over the town line. He won't be back.” 

“I’m sorry.” No matter how much she can’t stand Gold, she couldn’t imagine being in Belle’s position; loving someone so evil and having to make such a hard choice. 

“Don’t be. I did leave him, you know, in the Enchanted Forest. He started working with Neal and… I was just unhappy with the changes I was seeing with him. He was starting to show his true self. So I left, and he seemed to just snap. I knew they were going to do something drastic when I found out that Neal spoke with your parents, so that’s when I stole the memory potion and sent that message to Killian.” 

Emma draws her brows close together as she spins in the stool to face Belle. “Wait,  _ you _ sent the message?” 

“Yeah, you didn’t know?” 

Emma shakes her head; the information is making more and more sense the more she learns. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you. You probably saved everyone in Storybrooke. You definitely saved my family.” 

She smiles up at Emma. “It was the right thing to do,” she says, before she becomes distracted by whomever has just entered the diner. When Emma turns, she sees Robin’s friend Will waving at her and making his way towards them. She excuses herself when he kisses Belle’s temple softly and wiggles his eyebrows at Emma. 

When she gets to the booth that Henry’s sitting at, she takes a seat enthusiastically and bumps his shoulder with his, making a comment about his new uncle to which he barely responds. 

“I’m sorry, kid. I know this sucks,” she says after a moment of pointless small talk. 

“Yeah.” 

“You spent two years thinking your life was one thing and now it’s something completely different.” 

He nods. He’s silent for a few moments and she sits with him, knowing that he may need time to ponder through his thoughts. “Why did he do it?” he finally asks. 

She sighs and puts an arm around him. “I don't really know, Henry. Your dad… something happened to him and he just couldn’t handle not having his family with him.” 

“We weren’t ever a family, though, not  _ really. _ I mean, sure, we hung out, but it wasn’t anything like what you and I have, or even what me and Regina have.” She nods. “It was only a few months that I knew him. And he left you in jail.” 

“I know. I’m sorry that you had to see your dad like that.” He shrugs. “You know I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you, right?” 

With a nod, he says, “I know. That’s not what I'm worried about.”

“Can I ask you something?” He nods. “What made you come to the woods? What happened with you and Belle that made you do that?” 

He shrugs again. “I don't know, really. We were messing around at Granny’s and I was talking about how mad I was, and that I wanted to just take the dagger and give both of them a piece of my mind. Then Belle said ‘if only we had the dagger,’ and I told her we did have it. And she said we had to go and put an end to this. You guys probably should have just brought it with you.” 

Emma nods in response, laughing lightly at his logic. She was expecting some type of grand revelation between the two of them, but the reality was much more simply: Belle knew that Neal and Gold were up to no good, and she decided that she had the power to put a stop to it. “You’re right, we should have. Luckily, we had you to save our butts.”

“My dad…” he starts, ignoring her lightheartedness. “I just can't believe he would do something like this.” 

She makes a bold move and says, “is that what you told him? When you went to the sheriff’s station?”

Henry chuckles sadly and rolls his eyes. “You mean Killian didn’t tell you?” 

She bumps his shoulder again and responds, “I don’t think he would even if I begged. He respects you too much.” 

He nods back at her, still looking down at his glass of water and plate of cake. “I guess I told him that. I told him I was done with him. I said he could’ve had a chance but he ruined it by doing this.” Emma nods softly. As much as it hurts to hear her son say these things about his father, a part of her must admit that she’s relieved to hear that he’s made this decision. She isn’t exactly psyched at the concept of giving Neal visitation rights after this. “I told him he’s a selfish dick for trying to keep my mom away from the guy she loves.” 

She freezes at that, and not because her kid is using the unsavory language that he probably learned from her. Henry has always been a smart, perceptive kid, but has he always been  _ this  _ perceptive? To the point where he knows she loves Killian before she does? “Henry...” she tries to speak but can’t. 

“It’s okay mom. Maybe two years ago I would’ve wanted you to be with my dad, but… I don’t know. Hook has only been here for a few weeks and he’s been more of a dad to me than Neal ever has.”

~~~~

Corrine is put to bed by her father several hours later after a tantrum over not being able to put her hand in a bowl of hot soup. She wanted to grab the floating crackers as Tink dropped them into the dish, and each time Killian stopped her hand she screamed  _ no _ at him. At one point, it started to get out of hand and Emma called, “Corrine Alice Swan, you get your hand away from that bowl,  _ right now,”  _ as if the child could understand full sentences. She understood the tone, though, and boy, did she respond with a vengeance. 

Killian took her upstairs to her crib once she started screaming so loudly that Emma’s sure the entire town heard. Now that she can’t hear the blood curdling screech anymore, she’s about 98% certain that Killian is in the bedroom playing a One Direction music video, but that’s alright. The two of them dancing along together is quite possibly the cutest thing she’s ever seen, so she thinks she’ll let it slide as she ascends the stairs and opens the door slowly. 

What she’s met with is not a pair of One Direction fans, but rather, a swaying Killian holding a tearful but relatively calm Corrine as he hums lowly in her ear and rubs up and down along her back. Emma swoons, again overtaken by the image of dad-Killian in all his glory. 

He’s only known his daughter for about five weeks, but in that time they’ve become so close. Each day, Corrine learns more and more as she explores her world, and Killian is always trying to help her along by teaching her new words and phrases. He’s a natural with her, especially at this age, and the more of it Emma sees, the more she wants. 

“It’s time for sleep, my darling. Mummy and daddy will be here when you wake,” he whispers softly into her hair, and when Emma looks again, she sees Corrine’s thumb hanging out of her mouth and her face squished into his shoulder. He turns around and catches Emma’s eye, blushing fiercely as he bends to place the baby in her crib. Once she’s settled, he rubs a finger along her sweet face to remove one final tear and backs away before making his way towards the door and following Emma out. 

Emma doesn’t miss the promise he makes his sleeping child to be here when she wakes up; he’s still reeling from almost losing her, and it breaks her heart. 

“She didn’t need the phone, huh?” she jokes as they make their way down the stairs. 

He laughs lightly in response and says, “I believe she was too tired for that. It’ll be difficult to get her back on schedule, I’d say.” 

When they get back into the diner, Killian disperses into the crowd and Emma sees Henry talking to Regina. She’s happy that he’s rebuilding his relationship with her, she really is, but she’s also having trouble getting past their history. Try as she might, she can’t unsee that small child waiting on her doorstep begging for help defeating his  _ Evil Queen _ mother. 

Regina stands from the booth when Emma makes herself visible and walks over to her, clearing her throat and brushing down her blouse before she speaks. “Emma, I was thinking it might be good for Henry to spend the night at my house tonight. He’s open to it, but said we had to check with you,” she says bitterly. 

Emma raises her brows, glancing back at Henry, who gives her a smile. “He is?”

“Yes,” she responds sharply, as if Emma has offended her. “He has his own room, why should he stay here?”

Emma lets out an exasperated huff but nods her head. As much as her delivery absolutely sucked, Regina has a point. Perhaps she should start thinking of a permanent living arrangement herself. “Okay, if he wants to, then that’s fine.”

Regina looks chuffed as she says, “good,” with the soft hint of a smile before heading back to the booth to collect Henry. 

With both kids gone or asleep, Emma suddenly finds herself free of her motherly duties for at least the next few hours, and so decides to follow Killian to the patio with two tumblrs of rum, neat. 

“So, Gold’s gone,” she says once she’s sitting next to him, and he tips his glass to her in thanks. 

“Aye, I ran into Belle earlier. Relieved?” 

She nods, taking a sip from her glass. “Yeah. I’m still… I don’t know. I’m pissed.” He nods back at her. “He knew that we… were together on the ship, so he’s known this whole time. He knew it in the Enchanted Forest, and he knew it when he came back here. He could have just let it go and accepted that it was over between us, but he didn’t. And he messed up because of that.” 

“Aye. It’s quite frustrating, isn’t it?” She nods in agreement and rolls her eyes as she stares into her glass. “Do you think he knew about Corrine all this time?”

“That she’s ours?” He nods. “No, I think he genuinely blocked the possibility that we have a kid out of his mind. I think when he found out from you and Henry at the pier, that’s what clicked his plan into place for him. He realized that he would’ve lost without this memory potion.”

“Makes sense,” he starts, sitting up in his seat slightly. “I mean, it doesn’t. But it does.” 

“Yeah.” They clink their glasses together as they both finish the contents, feeling the warmth rushing through their veins as it combats the cool bite of the late-autumn air. “I have a question,” she states.

“Go on.” 

“Can you tell me what Henry said to Neal?”

He purses his lips, glancing up at her and shaking his head. “I don't want to violate his trust, love, but I can tell you that he’s a very smart lad.” She nods. “And I can also tell you,” he starts again, slowly and hesitantly reaching his hand towards her’s, “that Bae is not exactly safe to be around, and I’d feel much more comfortable if you and Henry stayed far away from him.”

“Did he threaten Henry?” She feels her palms starting to sweat. 

“Not Henry, love. The lad stepped away from the bars and Neal said some things about you that I’d rather not repeat. That I wish your son hadn’t heard. I stepped a bit too close— in anger, I’ll admit— and he lunged for me, as well.” 

She nods her head again, looking down at the table grievously at the news. Before everything, before Neverland and before the curse, she thought she may have been able to have a good co-parenting relationship with Neal, or that they may have even been able to become friends again. But now, he’s gone and ruined everything because he thought he could have more than he even deserved. 

“Thanks for going with him.” 

“Of course I would, love.”

“And thanks for… for coming after us, in New York. If you hadn’t…”

He shakes his head to silence her and says, “It was the right thing to do.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few more moments before she says, “can I ask you something else?”

“What is it, darling?” She smiles at the fond nickname. 

“How did you do it? How did you get to us?”

He looks down with a small, shy smile and says, “Well, the curse was coming, so I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I could to outrun it.”

“You outran a curse?” she asks with a doubtful smile. 

“I’m a hell of a captain,” he returns in a flirty tone, to which she responds with a soft laugh. “Once I was outside the curse’s purview, I knew that the walls were down. Transport between realms was possible again; all I needed was a magic bean.” 

“Those are not easy to come by.” 

He looks down again and takes a breath. “They are if you have something of value to… trade.” His words are clearly calculated as they leave his mouth.

She hums again and asks, “and what was that?” 

He smiles, eyes still looking at the ground, until he looks up and raises his brows at her, smiling as if he wasn’t about to admit to her that he sold his heart and home to find her and save her family. “Why the Jolly Roger, of course.” 

She’s frozen. Her brows pinch together as they often do when he says something heartfelt and profound, although this time feels different. It feels like  _ more. _ “You traded your ship for me?” 

He doesn’t hesitate, answering her with a firm nod. “Aye.” 

It happens so fast; she’s kissing him and his hand is lacing through her hair and hers through his. Her heart feels about ten times bigger than it should be at the feeling of his lips on hers after such an emotional confession, and she doesn't know if she’ll survive much more of his thoughtful words and selfless actions. When she finally pulls from him slightly, it’s as if he’s taking stock of what’s happening between them; as if he can’t quite believe that they’re here despite having been here before. 

“I—” she starts, although she isn’t quite sure what she wants to say. She smiles as he does, the feel of his thumb running along her jaw and chin and his nose nuzzling lightly against her’s stirring the butterflies in her stomach and the heat much lower. “I want you,” she finally whispers. “All of you. Every part of you and everything that comes with it… I want it all, with you.” 

It’s as close to a profession of love as she’s ever come before. She’s perhaps closer to telling him that she loves him now than when she actually said the words to Neal over a decade ago. She thinks she should be afraid— of his answer or of what may change between them, she isn’t sure— but she isn’t. 

“I want everything with you, too, Emma. Always.” His use of her name rather than any number of nicknames he has to choose from, and the meaning of his statement, isn’t lost on her. 

He kisses her again, like he can’t stay away from her any longer and absolutely  _ needs  _ to have her lips on his. While the last kiss was soft and slow, this one is more passionate and heated as he presses closer to her and laces his hand tighter into her hair. He pulls her gently towards him and she hears his chair scraping against the ground as he scoots forward. Once he’s got her where he wants her, he deepens the kiss, curling his tongue against her bottom lip until she opens up to him. It doesn't take much, the feel of him pressing close to her driving her mad with want. 

She’s just about lost her mind when she starts to shift in her seat, planning to move forward and hoist herself up and onto his lap so that she can get closer to him and hopefully sate the heat erupting through her down to her core, until she hears someone behind him clear their throat. 

_ Shit _ . 

“I think it’s about time you and I have a little talk about your intentions with my daughter.” Emma squeezes her hands around the collar of his jacket as her eyes fly open. Thank god she hadn’t actually mounted him… 

Killian clears his throat in an attempt to calm himself down before answering Emma’s father, although he still looks completely wrecked and refuses to turn around. “That’s a little old-fashioned even by my standards, and I still pay with doubloons.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m leaving,” he says firmly, although she can hear a smile in his voice. “I  _ was _ coming to give you a hug, but I’m not sure I want one anymore,” he jokes.

She laughs breathlessly as she stands up, moving to her father and giving him a tight hug. “How’s mom feeling?” 

“Good, just tired. I’m happy that everyone threw this together, but I feel guilty being away from them, so I'm gonna go back to the hospital.” 

“Give her a hug for me?”

“‘Course,” he says, kissing her cheek sweetly, then making a disgusted face and laughing. 

Her breathing is still rapid and her heart is still racing as she sits back down next to Killian, so she takes in a big gulp of air and wishes she had more rum. 

“Awkward,” she says with a small laugh.

He laughs. And he keeps laughing, and eventually he rests his head against his arm on the table and continues on laughing until no sound is coming out and he’s just a mess of shaking shoulders and teary eyes. At some point, she started laughing too, and anyone who exits Granny’s at this point would probably have the two of them committed. 

“We can’t catch a break, love,” he remarks through more chuckles, and she laughs harder still. 

Then she has a thought and acts on it so quickly that she can hardly even keep track of it. “Take me upstairs,” she says boldly, desiring not to be interrupted again when all she wants is to feel him on her. 

He raises a dramatic brow and cocks his head at her in question, or perhaps seeking confirmation, and asks, “aye?”

She nods, biting her bottom lip in a way that she thinks may be more flirty than she intended before she leans in again and kisses him softly. “Take me upstairs,” she repeats against his mouth. 

He stands so quickly that the table shakes and the glasses nearly fall over, and she laughs again. He holds out a hand to her, his smile bright and beaming, and when she takes it, she knows that things between them are shifting and that her life is changing. 

She can’t wait. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter to go!! The next one is..... pure smut. Like, there’s a little plot in there but... it’s smut. So.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter changes the rating to E

Emma feels like she’s sixteen again as Killian pulls her through the small and dwindling crowd at Granny’s until they arrive at the door to the room he’s been renting, apparently with doubloons, and he turns her so that her back slams against it and kisses her with ferocity. 

She moans, louder than she means to, but the sudden and feverish kisses that he presses against her mouth have completely shut off her faculties and she can’t hold anything back. They were together only once, two years ago, and have only been back with each other for a few weeks, but it feels like this is the most natural place for her. She feels like she’s coming home in his arms. 

He continues to pillage her mouth with his, his tongue dancing along the inside of her top lip and along her tongue, before she feels his hand move away from her side and twist the door knob. His prosthetic hand holds the small of her back so that she doesn't fall backwards into the room, but she stumbles slightly to the point where their mouths separate. Rather than joining them again, he fuses his lips to her neck and sucks a bit too hard, biting the sensitive skin and then flicking it with his tongue to soothe her. She moans again as he kicks the door shut with just a bit too much force. 

This would be the perfect moment for them to be interrupted. She almost expects to hear Corrine screaming from across the hall as he backs her up to the mattress and kisses her until she falls down onto it, but that doesn’t happen. Nothing stops his mouth from trailing down her neck or his fingers from tracing light patterns against her chest as he gently pushes her shirt aside. 

“Are you sure?” he murmurs against her skin, then he pulls away from her slightly to meet her eyes with his, waiting for her answer. She gets lost in them and moves her hand from his shoulder to gently caress his cheek, right along his scar. 

“What’s this from?” she whispers. 

He breathes out a laugh and she feels his warm breath brushing over her face as he kisses her cheek. “Shaving accident when I was four.” 

She laughs, hard, potentially killing the mood, but she doubts it. “Seriously?”

“Aye,” he laughs with her, pecking another kiss to her lips. 

“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m sure,” she says finally and is met with his cocked eyebrow again. “I said I wanted you, didn’t I?” 

He’s kissing her again, thank goodness. It’s slower this time, but just as hot and it drives her just as wild as a pool of heat settles in the lowest part of her stomach. She moans again when he bites on her earlobe and then sucks it between his lips before he trails lower and lower. She leans up and struggles to get her jacket off and then lies back down, chest heaving. She feels him everywhere; the weight of his legs settled between hers and the gentle strokes of his hand along her waist before it sneaks up under her shirt. He cups the side of her breast with his hand as his prosthetic holds him up over her, then she feels the pressure of his thumb stroking over her nipple through her bra, as if he knew exactly where to find it. 

They’ve been here once before. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d memorized every inch of her body in that one night. She knows that she did his. 

She groans when he pinches her nipple between his thumb and forefinger through the fabric of her bra and she feels him jutting his hips out against the mattress in response to the sound. It makes the heat in her core burn even hotter and she feels as though she shouldn’t have this many clothes on any more. “Did you lock the door?” she asks him as she leans up to pull her shirt over her head. 

He stands quickly, practically running towards the door and turning the lock, and when he turns around and sees her in only her bra and jeans, he falters, his jaw hanging open. “Bloody hell, I might not survive this.” 

She laughs again, and she wonders if she’s ever been with someone and laughed this much. “Having second thoughts?” she asks as she slowly glides her fingers down her abdomen and dances them along the button of her jeans. 

“Absolutely bloody not,” he answers, practically jumping onto the bed and making her bounce on the mattress as she giggles. “Take your pants off, love. I may combust if I have to wait any longer to be inside you.” 

She practically starts panting at the bluntness of his words and finds his authoritative voice impossible to resist, undoing the button and sliding the zipper down before she stands to remove her boots. She tugs her jeans over her ass so that she’s standing before him in just a bra and underwear and his eyes are hooded and dark as he takes in the sight of her. 

“Take off your pants, love,” she says to him with a cheeky grin, though she doesn't even try and imitate his accent for fear of being made fun of. He chuckles at her as he reaches down and impressively undoes the buttons of his shirt with one hand, sliding down to his jeans and popping them open as well. 

The last time they were in this position, it was in a dark corner of the crew’s cabin on top of a barrel of rum and against a support beam. There was no time for gawking or kissing or even much touching; only time enough to bring each other the pleasure they needed after their harrowing experience on Neverland. This time, there’s time, unless their angelic daughter decides to interrupt them, but she was so tired that Emma doesn't see that happening. So, when he removes his shirt and exposes the hair on his chest that trails down to his stomach and into his pants, she takes the time that she has to gawk. 

There’s something about him standing half-naked before her that’s so undeniably sexy. Maybe it’s the chest hair, or the leather straps trailing his shoulders, or the faint hint of muscle around his stomach and chest. Whatever it is, she feels it flooding her core as she bites down on her bottom lip, watching as he removes his jeans in one swift motion and kicks his boots off clumsily. 

She takes a few steps towards him and puts her hands on his chest, sliding them through the coarse hair there and up to his neck until she can pull him towards her and fuse her mouth with his in a searing hot kiss. Their tongues dance together again as he backs up, pulling her along with him until his legs hit the bed and he sinks down. She follows easily, straddling his hips with her legs and groaning at the feel of his calloused hand running along her side. She’s seen him handle the ropes on his ship with great force and roughness and she’s also seen the delicate nature in which he holds their baby, and right now, the way that he’s touching her falls somewhere between the two. He’s squeezing her skin and pulling her close to him as he kisses her, but he also gently massages soothing circles into her flesh. It’s driving her wild with a need for him. 

She takes action again, unable to resist the feel of him on her and craving him everywhere. She pushes his shoulders with her hands so that he falls back onto the mattress, then follows close behind so that she can kiss and nip at the skin of his neck. He groans as she finds a spot he likes right at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, squeezing her ass in his hand firmly, drawing a matching groan from her. She lifts up again and reaches behind her so that she can unhook the straps of her bra, freeing her breasts before him. They’re different from the last time; she breastfed Corrine for the first several months of her life, and she was much older during this pregnancy, so her breasts have sagged a bit, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching up and immediately taking a nipple into his mouth. 

He sucks and nips at the sensitive nub and it feels so good that she thinks she might explode, but she knows this isn’t quite enough. Not yet. That’s why she grinds her hips down against the hardness that he’s been unsuccessfully trying to conceal, drawing yet another groan from him. Though there’s two layers of fabric between them, she’s soaking through them at the contact of him against her clit. 

“Fuck,” she says as he cants up against her lightly, continuing to suck her right nipple and pinch her left. She’s less shy about her grinding movements as he continues, and this just might be enough for her, but she wants more. She needs him. “Fuck, stop.” 

He does, immediately releasing her from his mouth with a pop and looking up at her with concern in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I want you, that’s what’s wrong. If you don’t get inside me right now I might die.” 

He grins at her dramatics, running his hand down her waist and slapping playfully at her ass before saying, “well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” 

“No, we most certainly wou—ahh,” she’s cut off by the feeling of his deft fingers pressing tenderly against her cotton-covered clit and she drops her head down to his collarbone at the contact. 

“When I said ‘take off your pants,’ I believe I meant everything.” 

His voice is so deep and commanding that it makes her shiver, so she gets up off of him and drops herself onto the bed before tucking her thumbs into her underwear and tugging them down. She exposes herself to him fully and feels slightly insecure at the differences in her body since the last time. It’s not as if he could really see much of her that night, but she’s definitely earned more stretch marks since then. 

He doesn’t seem to notice, though, as he blinks rapidly and tries to get his modern underwear off past his erection. Another thing she wasn’t able to fully appreciate the last time was his cock, and damn, she was missing out. 

“You are bloody brilliant,” he says deeply before moving to kiss her tenderly. “Amazing. The most beautiful woman I think I’ve ever seen.” 

“God, you can’t keep saying shit like that,” she tells him with a laugh. He laughs too and kisses her once more and starts to lick and nip down her body. 

“May I taste you, love? I’ve wanted to since the last time. Before then actually. And I’ve thought of how you must taste for the two years you’ve been gone.” 

She throws her head back at the sound that the words make as they come from his mouth, his thoughts turning her on as much as the brusk tone of his voice. “If you don't, I’ll be really mad. Just, please touch me already.” 

He breathes out a laugh against her skin as he continues to descend down her body, biting at her thighs and her stomach and everywhere but where she needs him most. When his lips finally kiss against her clit, she can’t help but to jut her hips against his face, and his deep laugh vibrates against her. He holds her hips with his left arm as his right hand trails up to pinch at her nipple and his tongue laves against her sensitive skin. The way he eats her like a man enjoying his first meal in days makes her want to scream, but she settles instead for a loud moan and a tug to his hair. 

He continues his sinful motions with his tongue and lips, sucking and licking against her, before he removes his hand from her breast and tucks a finger inside her. The feeling of him pressing the digit to her more sensitive area is mind numbing, but when he adds a second, she nearly blacks out. 

She’s so close to reaching her peak that she’s seeing stars. His fingers continue to pump and curl deliciously against her hot skin and his mouth continues to work her over so that she’s so close to the edge that she’s almost shaking, but all at once, he stops. She nearly cries when he removes his fingers from her center and his tongue leaves her sex, and when she looks up at him with what she can only assume is a pathetic look on her face, he grins, licking his lips and sucking his fingers clean. 

She takes a deep breath to steady herself, knowing that he probably wants to finish her off with his cock. He slides up against her body, her skin so sensitive that she shivers at the feeling of his chest hair grazing her nipples, and kisses her softly. “You taste marvelous, just like I thought you would.”

“Fuck,” she breathes out. “Fuck me.” 

He hums. “Happily, darling.” 

He’s about to line himself up to her, settling himself on top of her and reaching down between them when she says, “wait!” a bit too loudly. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I need to see if I have a condom. But they— fuck. They’d be in my luggage.” She throws her head against the mattress in frustration.

They’re both so breathless that she thinks one of them may pass out. “What’s that?” 

She shakes herself out of her daze to answer. “For protection. Against another baby or diseases or whatever.” 

“Ah,” he starts, nuzzling her nose with his own. “Another baby wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

She nearly chokes at his words, pushing him aside and standing, searching for something, anything to put on so that she can make this quick. “We are so not having that conversation right now.” 

He laughs at her as she throws his shirt on to cover herself and rushes to the door, throwing it open. 

She pulls the shirt down to cover her ass as she strides across the hall and enters the room in haste, digging through her suitcase until she silently cheers at the condom in the front pocket. She checks the expiration date and sends a silent thank you to whatever deity might be listening, then spins around, checks quickly on her adorable sleeping baby, grabs the baby monitor, and runs back across the hall. 

He pops up, sitting up straight as she enters his room and shuts the door, then she crosses the floor, tosses the monitor onto the bedside table, and giggles as she bounces onto the bed and takes his face in her hands, kissing him again. He hums into her mouth, grabbing her hips under his shirt and pulling her closer to him. 

“Can I fuck you now?” he asks with his voice low and sultry before he bites her lower lip and licks over it to soothe the slight sting. God. 

“Aye aye, captain,” she answers in a whisper against his mouth, spreading her knees to settle on top of his hips. He hums again and she feels his chest buzzing against hers, the hair scraping on her sensitive nipples. 

“Mmm,” he growls, then he flips her over so that she’s on her back and he’s on top of her, kissing her again and again until she’s breathless. 

She has to hand it to him, because he knows what he’s doing. With each touch and flick and lick, he draws her closer and closer to the edge of the cliff she so badly wants to dive off with him, and he hasn’t even been inside her yet. It’s as if he can read her body like a book; one night with her was all he needed to know every detail of what she desires from him. 

She takes the condom from his shirt pocket, then rips the shirt off and tosses it to the floor. She tears the small foil square and reaches down between the two of them, concentrating on making sure that it’s on correctly— the last thing she needs right now is to be accidentally knocked up again. He groans as she runs her hand down his throbbing cock, twisting slightly at the base once it’s on snug. “How odd,” he remarks thoughtfully, and she chuckles at him, reaching up to kiss him once more. 

“No babies, no diseases.”

“Aye,” he says, although he looks confused, but seems to put the thought from his mind as she reaches between them once more, takes him in her hand, and lines him up to her entrance. She lifts her knees so that her heels are planted into the mattress at the same level as his hips, and once he thrusts into her, she throws her head back in a silent moan. “Bloody hell. Emma, you’re perfect.” 

She’s never cried during sex before, she doesn’t plan on ever doing so, but holy shit this is good. This is what she’s been missing for the past two years, and it may be making her a bit emotional. 

She didn’t remember their first time, back when she lived in New York. But with each of the few times she was with Walsh, she always felt that something was missing. This is what she was missing. 

He pushes his nose against her neck and kisses the skin there before pulling back out and slowly sliding back in until he’s filling her to the hilt, groaning along the way. Once she’s warmed up to him, he quickens his pace inside her, thrusting with more force and speed than she knew she needed and drawing a pathetic cry from her with each one. She’s never been very vocal during sex, but there’s something about the girth of his length and the angle at which he thrusts into her and the fact that it’s him that’s driving her to do things she never thought she would. 

“Fuck, there. Right there, don’t stop.” He groans again and bites her neck, and she shouts a bit too loud and half expects a knock on the door. 

“That’s it, love, take what you want from me. You’re so hot and wet for me, fuck. Squeeze me just like that, darling.” His words are sinfully erotic and she knows she won’t last much longer. 

It’s so good like this, so perfect, but when he tips his body so that his weight rests on his folded legs and he grabs her behind her own knees and starts striking her at a different angle, then presses his thumb against her clit, she’s completely gone for him, coming apart at the seams and taking him along with her. 

He bends back down so that he’s riding her through her orgasm with his body pressed against her’s, though he keeps his hand between them and continues to circle around her clit as she cries out for him. He curses as he climaxes, burying his head in her neck and whispering praises into her ears that make her clench even harder around him through her own orgasm. 

She’s never blacked out during sex before, but she thinks she may have this time. She’s unsure of how much time passes between their orgasms and him getting up from the bed to clean up, but she does know that it takes him too long to come back to her. He’s brought her a box of tissues to clean herself up with, and she knows she should get up and use the bathroom, but she can’t move. Her legs are quite literally jello; she always thought that statement was dramatic, but she gets it now. 

“Alright?” he asks when he gets back in bed, wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing the back of her head. She nods against him sleepily and snuggles further into his chest. 

“I knew I missed you, I just didn’t realize how much,” she says with a soft laugh. He returns it in kind and holds her tighter. 

“Aye, love. Although I think I did realize how much I missed you.” She shouldn’t be blushing when she’s been stark naked for close to an hour, but his words make her feel vulnerable in a different way. 

A thought springs to her mind, and she hasn’t a strong enough filter to hold the question in. “Was that your first time using a condom?”

“Aye.” 

“What’d you think?”

She feels him shrug against her back and kiss her head again. “It was alright. I mean, the sex itself was phenomenal, but the feeling of the profilactic was… a bit different. But that’s okay.” She nods. “When we were on the ship the last time, you said you were taking some manner of potion to prevent you falling with child.”

She huffs out a laugh at the irony, as the child she thought she was preventing sleeps across the hall. “I guess birth control doesn’t work in Neverland. It was out of my system by the time we got together.”

“I see.” 

“Although I am taking it now, so it should work for next time. We’d just need to worry about any diseases.” He nods. “When was the last time you… were with anyone?” 

He kisses her head again and holds her impossibly closer. “The last time I was with you.” 

A part of her is stunned. A bigger part of her isn’t. “No one else?”

“There’s no one else.” 

His words hold a depth that she might not have been ready for two years ago. “Not even when you thought you would never see me again?” 

“Not even then, love. Being with you was,” he breathes deeply and shrugs again, “that was it. I had no desire to be with another woman after that. Perhaps I would have after more time had passed, but I wasn’t ever ready to give up on you. On us.” 

Okay, now she’s stunned. They were cursed, for god's sake. He was told that she would never see him again, and that if she did, she wouldn’t remember him. And still, he held out hope that they might someday be together again. 

This is what Emma Swan deserves, she’s realizing. She deserves someone who would give up their home and their identity to be with her. Someone who would put her first. The more she thinks about it, the more she knows with certainty that that person would never be Neal. 

She rolls over onto her other side so that she’s facing him and wraps an arm around his waist, snuggling into his chest and pressing a soft kiss against his skin. “Thank you,” she says. 

He squeezes her and kisses the crown of her head. “For yet another life-changing romp?” 

She snorts, and if she wasn’t so close to him she would probably punch him playfully. She thinks the first was life-changing enough, thank you very much. “No, but that was nice. I meant thank you for… for giving me this. I didn’t know what I was missing but I’m so glad that you took the risk for me even though you didn’t know how it would play out.” 

“Of course I did, love. I’m—”

He catches himself and clears his throat, though she thinks she has an idea of what he was thinking. She may feel the same way. 

“I know.” 

He hums out a gentle laugh and she feels his hand running along her spine again. “Can I ask you something?” She nods against his chest and revels at the feeling of his hair brushing lightly against her cheek. “Her full name…”

“Corrine Alice Swan,” Emma says with a proud smile against his skin. 

“Alice was my mother’s name,” he whispers against her hair. 

She pulls from his grasp to look into his eyes with her brows pinched and her head cocked. “Really?”

He nods. “Aye.”

She hums happily as she settles back down on the bed, snuggling closer to him and taking in the warmth of his body. She’s never been a snuggler, but right now, she feels so comfortable. “You were with us all along,” she tells him softly. 

He pulls the blankets over them and holds her close, providing her with the sense of security that she’s lacked her entire life as she’s lulled into a dreamless sleep. 

~~~~

They wake hours later to the sound of Corrine’s babbling over the monitor and he kisses her before getting out of bed. She could easily stay in bed for several more hours, but the loss of his body heat against her leaves her chilly and unsatisfied, so she follows him and searches for her clothes. 

“Hi, my darling girl,” he says to her as they enter the room together and are greeted with her jumping up and down on her mattress. 

“Girl!”

“Yes, love. Good morning.” 

She tries to say morning and it’s so adorable. At sixteen months old, Corrine’s language has flourished and she repeats almost every word she hears. Killian constantly scolds Emma for swearing. 

“Snack,” she says as Killian lifts her from the crib. 

“Do you want breakfast?” He asks her, and she nods and pats her belly. He laughs softly and kisses her cheek. “Perhaps we shouldn’t show ourselves at Granny’s wearing the same things we were in last night?” 

“Night!”

“That’s probably best. I can’t take another one of Granny’s comments about our sex lives.”

“Ses!” 

“Swan!” She and Corrine giggle at his outburst and the exasperated look on his face. “You know she repeats everything you say!”

Once they’re changed and ready, they make their way down to Granny’s and are greeted warmly by Regina and Henry. She’s surprised to see Regina looking so cheerful, but supposes that she’s making an effort at being the mother that their son deserves. The three of them take a seat, Corrine looking tiny next to her dad in the booth since she refuses to cooperate in the high chair. Emma sits quietly and enjoys a hot cocoa with cinnamon, reflecting on her perfect family. 

She has Henry and Corrine. She has Killian back, and they’re happy. She has her parents and a new baby brother. 

Neal is in jail; he’ll be moved to the asylum shortly. Gold is gone and he won’t be back. 

She’s never been so happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s it!! I wont be including an epilogue, mainly because I’ve already started writing a sequel 😏 which I announced on tumblr earlier this week! Here’s the link if you’re interested https://elizabeethan.tumblr.com/post/634068448051331072/the-days-we-defend-will-turn-to-gold  
> Thank you so much to everyone who read this story, left kudos, and wrote comments!! You are a gift to the fandom

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I thiiiink this will have 8 parts, but that's subject to change. Catch up with me on tumblr @ elizabeethan!!


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